COLUMBUS, Ohio (WTVN) -- About 2,000 Columbus City Schools third graders have finished a reading challenge lasting roughly two months, leading up to the NCAA Women's Final Four events in Columbus.35 elementary schools took part in the contest."
Our students, the read every day. We set a goal. We told them to be proactive, put first things first, learn how to synergize with each other, and learn how to follow the seven habits to be a happy kid," says Charmaine Campbell, Principal at Parkmoor Elementary in north Columbus. "We're excited to see how well they'll do on the state assessment because they were able to do reading plus each and every day before school, during school and during the after-school tutoring program," Campbell added.
In a prepared statement, the Greater Columbus Sports Commission says the third-grade students collectively read "16,258,060 extra words over the past four months".
"We motivated our students by giving them a small token and a sense of daily. We mentioned their names over the PA system to the entire school. We created two bulletin boards which were gumball machines and the top readers for that time, their name went on each gumball, which went on the bulletin board, so the entire school saw that as well," Campbell said.