Every year, my students and I eagerly await a very special day for us: Dec. 1. It's not another holiday, field trip or assembly. On Dec. 1, the Seattle Public Library releases the ten book titles to be included in the annual Global Reading Challenge.
In my Catharine Blaine classroom on that day, business as usual comes to a halt until the kids have had time to go over the list and talk strategy.
The Global Reading Challenge is a program for fourth- and fifth-grade students put on jointly by the Seattle and Kalamazoo, Mich., public libraries. Librarians choose those ten books mentioned above, and students work in teams of six to seven members to read them. In the spring, the librarians travel to each participating school, where they hold a "quiz bowl" of sorts.
The teams compete to answer questions from all ten books. The team with the highest score then goes on to compete against the winning teams from other participating schools. The competition continues until one team is named city champion. They then go on to compete against the winning team from Kalamazoo over the internet.
We've had a pretty serious problem over the last few years, however: the number of teams who can compete in front of the librarians is limited to ten. Interest from Blaine fourth- and fifth-graders is so high that we always have too many teams-fifteen this year.
Trust me, I'm not complaining. Almost one hundred Blaine fourth- and fifth-graders are excited and eager to read high-quality books over the next few months.
To combat this "problem," parents have gotten involved. They have volunteered their time to coach teams during lunch time, leading mini-challenges to help the kids prepare. To my amazement, nearly all of our student participants happily give up their lunchtime recesses once or twice a week to come to the coaching sessions.
Just prior to March 22, our official challenge date, the parent coaches and I will hold a preliminary Blaine Reading Challenge to qualify the top five teams from each grade.
I'm grateful for the Global Reading Challenge for many reasons, not least of which is its ability to "trick little kids into reading," as I've been quoted on many occasions. I appreciate the quality of the books introduced to our kids, and the purposeful inclusion of authors and content from many cultures. It exposes our kids to a whole world outside of Harry Potter and Captain Underpants, where reading can bring great pleasure and open their eyes to new ideas.
Through this program, kids learn to set goals for themselves when it comes to reading. Each team member makes a pledge to cover a certain amount of material, and is held accountable to reach that goal by their teammates.
I help students to make a goal that is realistic yet still challenging. Some kids will read just one or two books over four months; some will read all ten. All will reap the benefits of increased comprehension ability, and all will gain valuable study skills.
Parents appreciate the challenge as well. The feedback I get from adults is that kids spend more time than ever reading at home, without being nagged or reminded. Kids come to school anxious to tell me they've finished another book! They often become interested in reading more material by the challenge authors, or find an interest in the new subject matter they've read about. They enjoy talking about the books they've read with their classmates.
Mostly, they feel proud to be part of it all.
Lisa Duke is a fifth-grade teacher at Catharine Blaine School in Magnolia.[[In-content Ad]]
