Elementary students at the MOBOCES North Broad site embarked on a month-long celebration of reading in March that will end with the launch of a new “One School, One Book” initiative.

The school kicked things off with a Read Across America Spirit Week, encouraging students to dress up for reading-themed days like “Readers are Superheroes” and “Wild About Reading.”

Program staff also launched three new school-based reading initiatives to help keep students engaged and excited throughout the rest of the month. The most exciting is the March Madness Book Battle Bracket.

Reading Initiatives

For four weeks, teachers read one of 16 books each day to their students, who vote on their favorites in pre-set pairs. The books with the most votes move on to the next round to face another title. The final school winner will be selected on March 28.

Along with the Book Battle, each classroom is trying to tally the highest reading total this month, and the class the reads the most books will earn a pizza party.

“We are doing this to promote a love of learning and to build empathy, fluency practice, and have fun,” Elementary Principal Chaz-Lit Doyle said. “These events help to promote reading and model good reading skills as well as create a lifelong love of reading!”

In addition to the Book Battle, students are working in pairs reading to a classmate each day. The Book Buddies initiative is helping students with both their reading and presentation skills as well as their listening and language comprehension skills.

A small group of more advanced readers are also working with Reading Specialist Emily Godshalk for a new Lunch Bunch Book Club. Each Friday, students spend their lunch period reading and discussing installments from the “I Survived” book series.

What’s Next?

All these activities will lead up to the March 31 launch of “One School, One Book,” a community reading effort that allows all students in the building to read the same title and to receive their own copy of the book to take home.

The school received 160 copies of “The Wild Robot” for the initiative, purchased using grant funds from Read to Them, a nonprofit that supports schoolwide reading programs.