"I Love to Read" month wraps up in Alberton
Alberton students wave their flags as they celebrate I Love To Read month.
Gloria Curdy dressed up to play the Cat in the Hat. Here, the Cat shows off the two bikes that were donated by the Mineral County Masons.
Left to right: Rebecca Pluth, Mackenzie Spence and Cassie Littlejohn were the top three readers. Pluth had 5,660 minutes, Spence had 4,280 minutes and Littlejohn read 3,162 minutes.
Miles Vaillancourt plays dominoes at a station last Wednesday. Students rotated around four different stations each tying themselves to a train aspect.
The Alberton elementary school finished its annual “I Love to Read” month last week. On Wednesday, the library wrapped up the month with awards and activities for the students. The theme this year was about trains and railroads.
The activities for “I Love to Read” month increased this year due to a literacy grant that the library received from the federal government in the amount of $290,000. The purpose of the grant is meant to improve literacy in schools through the library.
“The grant will be used to improve the school library so that it matches the curriculum of the school,” said Linda Gardner, Alberton librarian. “It will allow us to make our library more up to date and our students will have more resources for research and recreational reading.”
Alberton was the only school in Montana to receive the grant and only ten percent of all the districts that applied received the grant.
“It’s very cool,” Gardner said. “We’ve been so excited, our whole school is excited and our community is excited. It’s going to make a huge difference in our library and school.”
Some of the things that they’ve been able to do because of the grant includes instituting a reading club, bringing a Shakespeare play to the school, bought some software, used Skype to talk with an author and brought in a creative writing cooperative from Missoula. Gardner said they will also be weeding through the books they have and buying new ones. They also have a smart board in the library.
The activities for the annual month of celebrating reading also increased tremendously. Gardner said that overall 84 percent of the students completed the challenge.
“That’s more than ever,” she said. “This has to be done at home and it’s not required.”
During the month, students are encouraged to read as many minutes as they can at home. If a student isn’t old enough to read a book, they can also be read too. They have from February 1 through February 28 to accumulate as many minutes as they can. Letters are sent out to parents explaining how the challenge works.
“It’s a pretty big deal,” Gardner said. “And we were so psyched with the turnout this year. We almost ran out of prizes. We never know how it’s going to go, but I always buy prizes according to the past year’s numbers.”
It’s important to note that students need to read books that are at or slightly above their reading level. The main goal of the month is to get students reading and to improve in their reading skills.
“The main reason that I do all of this for the students is because I want Alberton students to be readers,” Gardner said, “on or above their grade level. The point of entire month is to increase reading skills for students so we make sure they have reading books at their level. We don’t want a book to be too hard or too easy because that’s not going to increase their level. So we make sure that a book is challenging enough, but not too frustrating.”
On Wednesday, students spent the morning rotating through different activity stations. From dominoes to a Jeopardy-like challenge, all the activities also had a train component to them. Before too long, it was time for the awards ceremony.
Students could reach three different bench marks for the amount of minutes read. If a student read 250-450 minutes, they were considered a brakeman. At 450-720 minutes, they were considered a conductor. At more than 720 minutes, students were considered an engineer. Each year, the top three readers reach a special rank and this year they were deemed station masters.
“Students that compete for the top reader award have to read way more than 3,000 minutes,” Gardner said. “We had so many that did so well we ended up giving away five awards this year.”
The top three readers this year were sixth graders Rebecca Pluth with 5,660 minutes, Mackenzie Spence with 4,280 minutes and Cassie Littlejohn with 3,162 minutes. In fourth place, and receiving an honorable mention, was sixth grader Heath Thompson with 3,127 minutes. Fifth grader Colton Tomlinson read 3,110 minutes for the fifth place spot.
The kindergarten with the most minutes was Noah Rausch with 1,200 minutes. Lyssah Kromrey was the top first grader with 2,175 minutes. Second grader Shayna Johnson read a total of 1,078 minutes. Eryn Odell was the top third grader with 1,535 minutes and Michael Spence was at the head of the fourth graders with 1,719 minutes.
Any student who reached the benchmark of engineer will also have the chance to visit Montana Rail Link in Missoula. A total of 38 students reached the top benchmark.
Finally, for a certain number of minutes read, the students would receive tickets to be entered in the drawing to win a bicycle. Jordan Taapkin,, third grade, and Sheridan Johnson, fourth grade, each took home a bike donated by the Mineral County Masons.