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Reading has its rewards: books
By LOGAN NEILL
© St. Petersburg Times, BROOKSVILLE -- The bookshelves in Amy Anderson's room at Brooksville Elementary are stocked and ready for the new school year. If all goes as well as she hopes, they will be nearly empty by May. That is good, said Anderson, because it means that kids are reading -- and reading a lot, thanks in part to an initiative called Read A Book-Get A Book, a program that rewards young readers with brand new books that they can keep. "It's one of the most successful things we've ever done with reading because it actually promotes kids to want to read more," said Anderson, the school's family resource coordinator. Proof of Anderson's claim can be found in the numbers she has kept. For instance, the total number of pages read by Brooksville Elementary students has risen dramatically since the inception of Read a Book-Get a Book three years ago. Last year, the students tallied more than 92,000 pages, much of it from recreational reading, nearly a third more than the year prior. Anderson believes that, as a result, kids at her school have gotten consistently higher test scores in reading and other language assignments. But perhaps most important to Anderson is the fact that most students are finding joy in an activity often considered mundane to many young people. "A lot of them, especially the younger ones, come in really excited, looking for books to read," she says. "It makes you feel pretty good that they get such a kick out of it." Students agree to read a book comparable to their grade level. Once they finish, they must fill out a book summary form and offer a short explanation of their thoughts. Once the form is signed by a parent, it is returned to the Family Resource Center so they can choose their reward book. The giveaway paperbacks range from kindergarten to second-grade picture books such as the popular Clifford and Curious George series to longer books aimed at pre-teen readers. Anderson sets no limits for how many books a child can earn. Good reading habits should be promoted as much as possible, she reasoned. "We gave away 2,145 books last year, and a couple of kids earned almost 50 books all by themselves," Anderson said. "That says a lot about how much it's being promoted by the teachers." Many of the students also use their books to earn grade points in the school's Accelerated Reading program. The program is so successful that it has received funding from both the school advisory committee and the Hernando Education Foundation, which helped to kick in nearly $2,500 to purchase books. Anderson believes that one of the program's greatest strengths has been to instill a pride-of-ownership notion among children who might not otherwise have the means to obtain their own books. "A lot of the kids at this school come from disadvantaged homes where there isn't a lot of extra money to buy books," Anderson said. "I think this can encourage those kids to learn to love reading, and they can build their own library for free."
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From today's Hernando Times |
