Social - August 2003

Middle schoolers race in reading competition

Published August 29, 2003

SARAH GRANO, Staff Writer

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Faculty at West Lincoln Middle School and Pumpkin Center Middle School hope that some good old fashioned competition will get their students reading, and it looks like their plan might work.

“Sometimes I don’t like reading unless I have to, but if I’m in a contest I want to win,” said Julie Adkins, an eighth grade student at West Lincoln.

The Great Reading Race has 86 students and faculty members at each school trying to read as much as possible. The contest started this week and will end near spring break.

The school that has the most pages read wins, and the loser has to host a picnic in the winner’s honor.

 “If they get into the habit of reading, that’s going to continue after the competition is over,” said Lee Ann Parker, a language arts teacher at West Lincoln Middle School.

Students at West Lincoln are not required to participate in the competition, but they all seem to be on board, said Parker.

Pumpkin Center students are also excited, said Kaye Hollifield, the school librarian.

“This crowd is very competitive,” said Hollifield. “The kids in this school absolutely inhale books.”

Newspapers and magazines do not count as pages read, but students can read a novel at any reading level they feel comfortable with.

“It encompasses all the types of learners on our team,” Parker said.

The students will log the number of pages they read each day. Everyone participating in the contest is on the honor system.

Some West Lincoln students involved are more interested in beating Pumpkin Center than reading, said Adkins. The students want to “eat pumpkin pie.”

Teachers hope that a renewed love for reading will be one of the results of the competition.

“Eighth grade is a year when they don’t read as much,” said Jackie Hartman, West Lincoln’s librarian.

“Sixth they come in reading a lot, and then seventh they kind of slack off, and eighth graders do that even more.”

Eighth grade boys read far less on average than eighth grade girls, Hartman said.

 Pumpkin Center has another reading competition at the school between boys and girls.

Although eighth grade boys do not typically read, the boys have started to beat the girls at the competition, said Hartman.

“It’s like cats eating birds over it,” said Hollifield. “I think it has a lot to do with fantasy. Harry Potter really helped boys get into the reading world.”

Faculty at West Lincoln hope the boys at their school will react the same way too.

“Boys at this age are very competitive,” said Hartman. “You just bring in what you can to get them to read.”

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Staff Writer Sarah Grano can be reached at 704-735-3031 or sgrano@ltnews.com.

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