Four King students hit reading milestone

If one were to listen to William O’Shaughnessy, Kailaash Malacarne, Emma Graham and Maxwell O’Connor talk about reading, and the excitement that elicits, it shows that there’s hope that in a digital-based world, book stores and libraries will be around for many years to come.

The four Martha P. King Elementary students were acknowledged last Thursday in front of their peers as those who were successful in the 1,000,000 Word Challenge. Meaning, the total number of words they’ve read since the start of the school year have topped that milestone. The total number of books read among the foursome varied based on the length of the books.

“I am so proud of these incredible students,” Principal Jason Schrock said. “One million words is no easy goal to hit, and I love that our Accelerated Reader program is supporting their love of reading by both challenging and incentivizing them to read.”

“Ms. (Michelle) Godfrey, our librarian, has done an incredible job growing our Accelerated Reader program. She hosts a morning book club that allows students to come to school early, use the library, talk about books they love, and start their day in a calm, positive, reading-focused environment. Experiences like this are helping to build lifelong readers at King.”

Like Schrock, Godfrey was very proud of the students.

“I see these students in the library almost every day choosing books, setting goals, and encouraging one another,” she said. “Reaching one million words is a remarkable achievement, and they truly earned it.”

The Accelerated Reader program helps provide the number of words in each book. This means the students have a good idea as to when they were approaching, and later, exceeding the million-word mark.

The four were asked how they felt about hitting such an impressive milestone.

William (fourth grade): “I feel really good and I liked reading all the books on the way to it.”

Kailaash (fourth grade): “I feel proud. Same thing, I really liked the books I read. It was a good experience.”

Emma (fourth grade): “I really feel like I accomplished something.”

Maxwell (fifth grade): “I feel like I accomplished something. It was a lot of fun along the way.”

And the incentive to read two million words by the end of the school year: principal for the day. When asked what they’d do if they had that title bestowed upon them, their answers varied. William said he’d give recess to every student for the entire day. Kailaash said he’d spend the day teaching his schoolmates about airplanes while Emma said she’d have the student body spend the day in the library and Maxwell would have everyone read the entire school day.