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Library Reading Program Follow-Up

A while ago I posted about the library reading program I hosted during the fall semester.

The program ended just before our winter break. Before I announced the contest, I wasn’t sure what kind of a response to expect. My program required students to read books outside of class, and it was up to the student whether or not to participate. I was quite pleased with the results:

  • The program was open to third through twelfth graders and around 27% of students participated.
  • There was a total of 335 entries (so 335 books read).
  • My top readers read 76, 73, 24, and 20 books. (Pretty amazing since the program ran over the course of 116 days!)
  • For fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, around half of the class had at least one entry.

There were only 13 participants from grades seven through twelve. This was a bit disappointing but partly could have been because many of the secondary students already owned Kindles, e-readers, or tablets. Also, our secondary fiction section is more limited than the juvenile fiction section, though I’m working on that this year.

 

Reading program jar

 

Reading program entries

 

The prizes were two 50TL gift cards to D&R Music and Bookstore, one 100TL gift card to D&R, and one Amazon Kindle Fire. Surprisingly, all but one of the winners were in seventh grade. (The Kindle winner? He only read and entered with 7 books!) I also offered a pizza party to the class who read the most books.

 

Reading program winners

 

Reading prizes

 

I do not plan on hosting the same program during the spring semester, but will consider doing it again sometime. If I run it again, I’d make a few changes:

  • I had originally offered a pizza party to the class who read the most books. However, I later realized I did not want to reward those who did not participate. I ended up changing the rules slightly to reward the participants of the class that read the most books. I also added in two students from other grades who read a large number of books. Next time, I’d change it so all students who read 20 or more books (or some other set number) get to join the pizza party. 
  • I wish I had more prizes. I could not fund any more gift certificates (the store I visited only had 50TL or 100TL incriment giftcards available), but I would consider offering small prizes like bookmarks or reading lights.
  • The second graders were allowed to participate in the running for the pizza party, but I did not receive any entries from them. Most of the second graders were not reading chapter books. I would exclude them completely next time.
  • It would be ideal to offer book lists for students or grades based on their Lexile scores. Our school started MAP testing this year, but we’re still working on cross referencing data with our library catalogue.

 

Click here to read about the reading program rules.
You can download the entry forms at my TPT site.

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