Let me tell you something about my students… They hate to see X’s on their work. They want to have work papers filled with ticks so they can take it home and show Mom how smart they are (which is totally understandable). So, in the past, I would correct their books with X’s and ticks, and let them do their corrections after. Would you believe that some of my students would rip out the page from their books or simple ‘forget’ to show it to their parents because they are ashamed of the X’s?

Thank goodness I soon realized that they did not mind having me using a message stamp on their work. So I tried the ones you see below.

There are many types available but some are worded a bit harshly and I do not like to see these kinds of messages messages in red ink so these fit my criteria nicely.

I also encourage my students’ parents to get erasable pens for their kids because it keeps their writing neat with no erasing holes or scratches. With these pens, I let my students simply erase, and try again. Sometimes, I would use my own erasable pen to put an X and promise that it they can redo it correctly, I’ll erase the X and replace it with a tick. Below is a picture of one of my erasable pen (I use other colors too).

I’d really like to know how you get your students to earn their ticks. Please leave a comment below!