Plant a Seed. READ!

Calling all readers and listeners, preK to grade 8,

plus parents and staff!

Let's plant a seed and read this summer!

The challenge is to see how many books students can read (or have someone read to them) over the summer. The program begins the last day of school, June 12, and ends on September 12, when we are back in school.

Students will compete with other members of their grade to see who reads the most books during that time. There will be prizes to the highest readers in each grade level. This year, we are adding an additional category. There will be a prize for the class that collectively reads the most books. So get fellow classmates to read, too!

We invite all students up to grade 8 (including our preschoolers, of course!), parents and school staff to take the challenge!

We are using the online reporting system, ReaderZone, to keep track of books read. It is easy for parents or students to login books after they are done reading them.

Download and/or update the ReaderZone app on any Android, Apple or Amazon device. Log into our program by using the code e47b2. When students have completed reading a book, enter the title and author in their Book Bank and then rate it.

In the mobile app, a book that's in the "Books I've Finished" area has a button that says "Rate Book". When a reader clicks that button, the panel opens up to write something and give a 1 to 5 star rating. Readers are invited to write one sentence and review the title for extra credit on their reading!

We want children to keep reading so they can do better in

reading and math when they return to school in September!

We don't want children to take the 'summer slide' which refers to the knowledge they can lose during summer break if they are do not use those reading and math skills they just learned in school. James Kim, Ed.D., a Professor at the Harvard University School of Education states, “Things like decoding, letter knowledge, and word reading skills are very susceptible to decay without frequent practice, as are math facts like addition and subtraction.”

We don't want this to happen to our students!

If you have any questions, let me know.

Mrs. Carol K. Phillips, MLS

Librarian at St. Bartholomew School

cphillips@stbartseb.com