Reading day brings out book worms

Nick Ianniello

Mineral Independent

Alberton students celebrated Dr. Suess’s birthday and the end of their annual February reading contest last Tuesday with some wild west-themed games and an assembly honoring the most devoted readers in the school.

“It went really well this year,” said Alberton librarian Linda Gardner.

Gardner has been getting students involved with the schools’ Feb. reading challenge for four years now by offering prizes to the students who read the most.

“It’s not a requirement and they don’t get any sort of grade for it, they just do it because they want to,” Gardner said.

Each students from kindergarten through sixth grade was given a reading log to keep track of their reading during the month of February. They logged the amount of time they spent reading outside of school and their parents signed the log to authenticate it.

“It brings parent involvement in and that’s a great thing to see. I see parents around town all the time and they talk to me about it,” Gardner said.

Students that read between 250 and 449 minutes in the month of February were given the rank of Deputy, and got a mustache to wear for the rest of the day. Students that read between 450 and 719 minutes were given the rank of Sheriff and got to wear a mustache and a sheriff’s badge for the rest of the day. Students that read more than 720 minutes were given the rank of Marshal and got a mustache, badge and cowboy or cowgirl hat to wear.

Students had to read around 10 minutes a day to get the rank of Deputy, around 17 minutes a day to reach the rank of Sheriff and at least 26 minutes per day to reach the rank of Marshal.

The top three readers of the group were given play horses, blankets and a copy Hattie Big Sky, a book about a young girl that moves to Montana and takes over a homestead.

Alec Managhan was the school’s top reader with 5,000 minutes. Haley Boyer came in second with 4,760 minutes and Devyn Dutt came in third with 2,708 minutes.

Managhan said that he usually read around 20 minutes a day, but he stepped thing up to nearly three hours every day for the competition.

“It feels pretty good to win this,” Managhan said.

Honorable mention was given to Olivia Taylen, who read 3,551minutes, and Samantha Bestwick, who read 3,060 minutes, for their efforts.

“We had other kids that read in the 2,000’s and they all worked really hard,” Gardner said.

This year, 80 percent of the eligible students participated in the program, a big jump from last year’s 65 percent.

“The peer pressure is to read, which is pretty cool. A few kids don’t want to read, but I don’t push it or force them to, I just move on,” Garnder said.

During the competition, the younger students that were still learning to read were allowed to count their parents reading to them into the competition, but the older students had to read themselves. Garnder said that by counting time instead of number of books or pages read, sthe playing field was leveled for all of the different age groups.

“The idea is not how many books you read, it’s how much time you spend reading,” Garnder said.

The original competition started in celebration of Dr. Suess’s birthday on March 2. Garnder said that after that it just picked up and students now love the competition.

“They just drive me nuts all year long about this competition, they get so excited,” Gardner said.

After the top readers were honored, the top two readers from each class got to come out and play a game called “Hop on Pop,” where Gardner read aloud Dr. Suess’s Book Hop on Pop while the students got to jump up and down on large sheets of bubble wrap.

“It makes a huge racket and the kids just love it,” Gardner said.

At the end of the assembly, names were drawn from a hat of students that did well reading in the classroom for one of two bicycles or a $25 Barnes and Noble Bookstore gift certificate. The prizes were donated by the Mineral County masons.

During the day Tuesday, students celebrated their reading achievements with some wild west-themed games. They participated in a scavenger hunt, some round-up games in the gym, sat on saddles, made wild west bookmarks and played a game entitled “Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grade Cowboy?”

Gardner said that the program is great for the students because it helps them see the value in reading.

“Different kids have different goals, but the whole idea is to get kids to spend more time reading.” Gardner said. “That’s because the longer you read the better you get at reading and the better you are at reading the better you do in school and the better you do in school the more likely you are to stay in school.”