Will Rogers Elementary School will launch its 11th annual Readathon tomorrow, January 19. It will continue to February 9.
Its purpose is to inspire its students and their families to read and enjoy books and reading, while raising money for school programs. The Readathon raises about $10,000 annually to underwrites the school’s media center and other projects, as well as paying for vital supplies.
This year’s Readathon theme is “read to achieve.”
During the three-week reading spree, the children keep track of the minutes they spend reading and line up sponsors. This year’s goal is 500,000 minutes.
Among the incentives that are offered to reward and encourage the young readers are prizes to the classes that rack up the most minutes and the classes that have the most improved minutes, and to the students who read the most minutes in their grade.
Special events are also held, such the now-famous Pajama Night, on which parents, teachers and students all dress in Pjs and Principal Days, on which students read to the principal. There is also a roving Lending Library cart for students who are looking for a few good books.
Once again this year, Coldwell Banker is the corporate sponsor of the Readathon. Its Sunset Park realtors Heidi Schuler and Suzanne Sanders have donated 700 folders, to provide parents with information about the event and $1000, which is funding some of our special activities and prizes.
The school-wide Pajama Party will be held tomorrow night at 6:30 p.m. Mark St. Juste, a teacher, parent and musician, will perform topical “rap” songs to get the readers going.
Children will be invited to read to the principal on the mornings of January 23 to 25.
Parents have collected books from their own shelves, other schools and bookstores for the lending library cart to ensure that all the Children will have plenty of good books to read.
This year’s Readathon will culminate on March 3, with the Awarding of prizes, and a celebration of Dr. Seuss’ birthday and “Read Across America” day. For the day, all the teachers don “Cat in the Hat” hats and the principal and vice-principal read Dr. Seuss stories to each class.
