100 Book Challenge

One of the programs that Alex's school participates in is the 100 Book Challenge. It is a literacy system designed to teach children independent reading. We have been huge fans! The children have Reading Logs in which they keep track of every 15 minutes of reading (similar to a Public Library summer reading program). The children are given 15 minutes during the school day to read, and they are encouraged to read 15 minutes at home each night, as well as 15 minutes on the weekends. Of course you can always do more, which Alex has! At this point in the school year, if you've followed the suggested reading times, the children should have completed 100 steps of reading which equals 25 hours of independent reading.

The school has four award ceremonies to recognize the students who have reached the appropriate steps. Yesterday students who had reached 100 steps of reading received medals and certificates. We're proud to admit that Alex had not only reached the 100 step mark, but was the only 1st grader to have reached the 200 step mark (and he is nearly to 300...we're actually shooting for 100 steps per month).

The picture below shows him being recognized by his teacher and the principal for his success. His teacher told the school, and the parents, that Alex's secret is that he doesn't watch much television, and therefore is able to complete several steps each evening. He's actually had a few children tell him that they want to quit watching TV in order to 'catch up' to his steps. This was encouraging to us because we've always told the children that if they do their best, it encourages others to do their best.
Later that day, in music, the music teacher made up a song about Alex for the students to sing. He couldn't quite remember it all, but it went something like, 'I know a boy who reads a lot, and this is how he does it, he turns the TV off......'. We told Alex that no one was making up songs about us when we were in school.