Our school is in a small rural community with approximately 300 students kindergarten through fifth grade. We also house two daycare classes, a HeadStart class, and two PreK classes that add approximately 80 more students. Many of our students receive free or reduced lunch and breakfast. Several of them have no support at home in completing homework and are not encouraged to meet their reading goals.
Our students come to school each day ready to read anything and everything they can get their hands on.
The reading teachers and I work together to increase the students’ reading skills through classroom activities and by encouraging them to take Accelerated Reader quizzes on books in their reading range. We also invite our fourth and fifth grade students to be part of our Elementary Battle of the Books Club where they read 15 books and compete in the spring against other schools. Book by book, our students are learning to love reading more and more each day.
My Project
Each year our district hosts an Elementary Battle of the Books (EBOB) competition. This is a competition in which fourth and fifth grade students read twelve to fifteen books and then compete in a battle against the other elementary schools. My school has participated twice but not won. We've heard the saying "third time's a charm" and we believe it. We're determined to WIN in the 2019-2020 battle!
The past two years I have noticed that through this competition, even the reluctant readers succeeded in reading at least twelve books and learned to love reading more than ever!
More students read all 15 books this year than they did the year before. I can't wait to see how many will read all 15 next year.
Each year the book list changes so there is a need to purchase the upcoming set of books. These books will be read by our EBOB team members in preparation for the March 2020 battle. Then, after the competition, the books will be added into our regular school wide circulation so that all the students in our school can enjoy them.
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