Contact:Dr. Adam Fried
201-768-5700 *210
fried@nvnet.org Ron Karr
201.666.7599
ron@ronkarr.com For Immediate Release
Reading Becomes a Contact Community Sport
Some children view reading as a chore. Question is how do we get all students excited and motivated to read a lot? The answer is turn reading into a community sport.
Harrington Park Public School is doing just that. With its innovative 10,000 Books Project, it has taken the concept of reading and turned it into a community event that creates excitement, commitment, participation and results. Based on the research of Richard Allington (2000), volume of reading is one of the four essential components to an effective reading program. With its 10,000 Books Campaign, The Harrington Park School has challenged its student body to each take on the responsibility of reading 14 books this school year. The program is designed to bring excitement, goal achievement, team support and energy to the action of reading, elements that youth often find in sports and other stimulating activities.
Says program founder Patty McGee, "If you can bring the same kind of excitement and teamwork children are used to in other parts of their lives, then it is realistic to expect they will pay the same kind of attention to the sport of reading as they do with their other activities, as long as you keep it challenging and interesting"
The goal of the program is simple: Get students to enthusiastically read a lot of books. The idea is to create a lot of excitement around the team goal of hitting 10,000 books which encourages students to constantly talk about the initiative and encourage fellow students to hold up their end of the bargain. Parents, teachers and the community play an important role in this. As the buzz starts with the pep rally announcing the program, efforts will be made to increase the buzz to the point where everyone in the town is involved. You need lots of participants to encourage the students to read on, help count the books read and make sure that when the year ends, the scales tip over the 10,000 book mark. A true community effort! Rewards are also part of the equation for hitting significant milestones.
Dr. Adam Fried, superintendent of the Harrington Park School System, says, "Any school system must support the community at large. We are not an independent body. We serve the entire community. The more we do in getting the community involved, everyone wins: the students, the residents, businesses, everyone. The more people involved, the higher the probability that no student is ever left behind and that every student reaches his/her true potential"
The Harrington Park School is a K-8 school serving the small town of Harrington Park, N.J. Notable graduates of the school include Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Angela C. Santomero, the creator/executive producer of the popular children's show, "Blue's Clues" Santomero claims her inspiration that led to the Blue's Clues came from writing in her journals in Mr. Walker's class and reading to her little sister, Jennifer Brackenbury. Brackenbury today is a librarian at the Harrington Park School and is implementing the 10,000 Books Campaign along with McGee.
The 10,000 Books Campaign was launched in September and announced to the parents by Principal Davies at the Open School Night. During this presentation, additional information was provided by both McGee and Brackenbury, the school librarians who have created this idea and are dedicated to seeing it through.
As for results, a whopping 3,800 books have already been read by the student body (includes summer reading program). With only a couple of months into the school year and having reached 1/3 of its goal, program founder McGee sees the student body greatly exceeding its 10,000 target.
She should know. In 2002, McGee launched a similar effort on a smaller scale in Norwood, N.J., with the 4th grade. That initiative called for 25 4th graders to read 1,000 books during the school year. Her efforts were acknowledged when she was awarded the Milken Educator Award of which there are only 16 recipients in the State of N.J.
Upon being hired by the Harrington Park School District this year, Superintendent Adam Fried charged McGee and her colleagues to "think big and bring us your craziest ideas" With 3,800 books already read a couple of months into the school year, maybe it isn't crazy to expect the Harrington Park Student Body to greatly exceed its goal of reading 10,000 books this year.