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Shaw Avenue students read 100,000 minutes ... and then some
Educators and PTA leaders at Shaw Avenue School wanted students to read 100,000 minutes at home during a two-week period earlier this month. With about 760 students in grades K-6, they figured it was an attainable goal.
It was. The students not only met that mark, they far exceeded it. Through a Parents as Reading Partners program, children read a total of 183,003 minutes outside of school, and their accomplishment was celebrated during a pair of assemblies on March 20.
“It wasn’t a surprise to me because I knew our kids could do it,” Principal Johane Ligonde said. “What I was most surprised about was the level of passion.”
During the two-week span, children would bring in a slip each morning signed by a parent documenting how many minutes they read at home the night before. PTA volunteers Antoinette Hessing and Angela Laurent tallied up the minutes and kept track, class by class, on a leader board in the school hallway.
Each day, Laurent said, students would gather around the board to see the most up-to-the-minute reading totals. “They were very competitive,” she said of the children. “It was just really fun to see them so excited about it.”
During the assemblies, the top-reading classes in the school were honored. The class in each grade level which totaled the most reading minutes will get an ice cream party later this year. Arlene Upton’s fifth-grade class topped the school as her students collectively read for more than 12,000 minutes.
The top student readers from each grade were also recognized. Each child got a gift bag that included a T-shirt, water bottle, pencils and gift certificates to Magic Bagels and Barnes & Noble. They will also get to take part in a pizza party with Ligonde.
Leading the pack was sixth-grade student Ogochukwu Chukwuma. She read for 1,455 minutes, followed by fourth grader Omari Chan who completed 1,380 minutes of reading.
Omari said that the best book he read during the contest was “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” He estimated that he read for at least an hour or two each night, often with his mother.
