Read to Succeed

Andrew had the opportunity to compete last week in the Read to Succeed program. Over the course of the school year, he and his teammates have read 19 selected books. Andrew read 9.5 books (he didn't quite get that 10th one finished before the competition). They were all to read as many of the 19 books as possible. (His team L-R: Alisha, Andrew, Mrs. S, Diego, Brooke)

The team of 4 goes against a team from another school. There are 30 questions per round with each team getting 15 questions. They earn 15 points for correct book/author and if they are incorrect, the opposing team can steal the question and earn 10 points for a correct answer. It's a double elimination competition and it is open to students grades 4-6. All of the books are written at a 6th grade level.

Andrew's team won the first round (by quite a bit) and unfortunately they lost rounds 2 & 3. The third round, they only lost by 30 points (TWO questions). That was a pretty tight match considering if the other team didn't have the steals, it would have been less than two questions to win.

All of the teams they went against (luck of the draw) were mostly 6th graders. We were so proud of how well they did. Just to read that many pieces of literature in one year is a great accomplishment. Most of the books were close to or over 200 pages. Some of my favorites were "The Borrowers" by Mary Norton and "Trumpet of the Swan" by E.B. White. Andrew LOVED "The Egypt Game" by Zilpha Keatley Snyder and "The Secret School" by AVI.

Here they are deep in debate over the correct answer to a steal. You get your heads close together and whisper so the other team can't hear you. You don't want to accidentally give them the correct answer.