Fairmount has made an exciting change in their effort to encourage students to read. Instead of setting AR point goals, Fairmount has two main goals for reading this year:
1. We want students to FIND BOOKS THEY LOVE to read. We want our students to read for the JOY of reading…not because a book is worth a certain number of points. We believe ALL READING is GOOD READING.
2. We want students to FINISH MORE BOOKS. We have noticed that many children are excited about books but then do not finish them (many times because they are worried about rushing to meet a point goal). This year we want to see more kids choosing books they love and sticking with them until the end. We believe this will help students grow as readers.
How will we achieve these 2 goals? This year we are allowing students to choose reading challenges that sound fun and interesting to them. Once they have selected a challenge, students work to read a specified number of books and take the AR quizzes to show what they have read. Once a student reads enough books to complete the entire challenge, they collect reading charms that represent the challenges. Charms are awarded during the end of the nine-week Awards Day. Charms can be displayed on a necklace or backpack.
In the first nine weeks, Fairmount awarded 246 charms for completed reading challenges. We are already seeing students surpass the number of books they read all last school year in just one quarter! More importantly, our students are excited about what they are reading. They are sharing book recommendations with their teachers and classmates and falling in love with new series and genres.
Students can also work toward one of our year-long Mega Challenges. The books they read for each quarter’s challenges will count toward these bigger challenges. The Mega Challenges include:
· Millionaire Challenge- read one million words this school year
· Half-Millionaire Challenge- read 500,000 words this school year
· 40 Book Challenge- read 40 books from a variety of specific genres
· 20 Book Challenge- read 20 books from a variety of specific genres
Students who meet these challenges will receive reading charms during the nine-week Awards Days, but they will also earn an award medal at the end of the year awards ceremony. Millionaire Club students will also get to go on a special end-of-year field trip.
Our top word count students at this point in the year are Jonathan, Johnay, Kh’Naye, Kamden, Charlotte, and Jaxon. Many students have decided to take on the rigorous 40 Book Challenge, too.