1,000 PAGE READING CHALLENGE AT ECS

Each year at El Dorado Christian, English teacher Mrs. Janet Swank challenges her students to read 1000 pages per school year. (That number is prorated for new students coming in later in the year.)  This year, over 90% of her students met that goal!  1,000 pages?  Wow!  But wait, it gets better!  Out of the 40 students in grades 3rd  through 6th,  17 read over 2,000 pages!  That’s almost 50 % of her students! (Congratulations to the 2,000 page winners for receiving the “Outstanding Reader Ribbon.”)

Let’s talk about the requirements; Mrs. Swank requires the first 1000 pages to be grade-level biographies or children’s classics (which she has in her classroom) or similar books owned by the student which is authorized by Mrs. Swank prior to reading. Once they reached 2,000 pages, she allowed a few fun titles as rewards for such “serious reading!”

Mrs. Swank shared that, “Last year (2019-2020) the El Dorado Springs Community Foundation awarded our school a grant that helped purchase over 30 titles in the Childhood of Famous Americans series, a classic children’s biography series, allowing us to have duplicates of many of the titles. That series is very popular among the 3rd and 4th graders, and all grades have benefited from them in preparation for the annual ECS Wax Museum.”

What an amazing and wonderful idea!  Mrs. Janet Swank thought 1,000 pages read was a good goal; 2,000 pages, awesome, 3 to 5 thousand, incredible…but, wait…six of her students each read over 5,000 pages!  They are what Mrs. Swank calls “Super Readers!” There are four students who read over 8,000 pages and one “Colossal Super Reader” who read a whopping total of 16,573 pages! Parents, what fuel are you feeding these kids!  WOW! They are “Super Humans!”  Pictured with their teacher Mrs. Janet Swank (far left); l-r: 2020-21 “Epic Colossal Super Reader”- 4th grader, Miss Tirzah Pietersen, read 16,573 pages, 1st place winner overall; “Mammoth Super Reader”-4th grader, Miss Kaidyn Asmus, read 9,708 pages, 2nd place winner overall; “Gigantic Super Readers”- 4th graders, Mr.Trey Watkins and Miss Grace Hubbard.  Trey read 8,985 pages and placed 3rd overall; Grace read 8,197 pages and placed 4thoverall; next, two “Massive Super Readers”-6th graders, Miss Eleanor Blurton and Mr. John Pietersen; Eleanor read 6, 284 pages and received 1st place in 6thgrade; John read 5,176 pages and placed 2nd in 6th grade; and ECS Principal, Mrs. Kelly Bryson.  Principal Bryson and Mrs. Swank are “extremely proud of our students…what an impressive and amazing accomplishment!”  Congratulations to each one of these bright students, and congratulations to the parents and teachers that love and nurture them.