Read-a-thon 2012 Newsletter
Read-a-thon is back and will be happening from March 2nd until March 9th this year. Pupil packs will be coming home after our launch assembly on Friday February 24th.
What’s it all about?
For those of you new to Read-a-thon it is about getting pupils to read as much as they can in a week. It is about inspiring children to fit more reading into their lives and encouraging families to read together. It is about helping pupils to grow as readers and providing them with the books they need and want to help them achieve their goals.
Fundraising
It is also about raising money. Money that is used to help every pupil in the school to enjoy reading. I am hopeful that everyone has noticed books coming home with a “Donated by Read-a-thon” sticker on the front. Last year alone Read-a-thon raised over £11 000 and we were able to improve the P1-3 stock at John Muir campus and fill in the gaps when books moved to Lochend Campus. We were also able to respond to the needs of pupils and buy more of the lower and higher level Accelerated Reader books.
All the money raised by nursery pupils is kept for nursery provision and money raised by the P7 pupils this year will be donated to the Dunbar Grammar School library so that they get the benefit of their hard work.
Prizes
We have chosen our prizes carefully in the past in order to motivate as many pupils as possible to take part. Last year our participation was over 50%. This year our goal is to get 60% participation. There has been some criticism of the choice of electronics as prizes so this year we have decided to offer Amazon vouchers as prizes. We will have a total of 4 £100 gift vouchers on offer so pupils can choose to buy an ereader, books, music…virtually anything.
To be entered in the prize draws for the first 2 Amazon vouchers pupils in P1 and P2 need to read for at least 3 hours. In P3-7 they need to read for at least 5 hours.
The second prize draws for one of 2 Amazon vouchers are based on raising money. This year we have decided that instead of raising £20 pupil need only to raise £10 to be entered into this draw. We are hopeful that this will improve participation rates and take some pressure off of families. Remember, there is no obligation to donate any money, but all the money donated will be used to the advantage of all pupils.
We also offer a pizza party to the class in each year with the highest average reading time per pupil. This is another way to reward readers and boost participation.
Once Read-a-thon ends, pupils have 2 weeks to return their envelope with the number of hours read written on the front and any sponsor money raised inside. Every day of the 2 weeks 10 books will be given as prizes to the 10 names that are drawn from the nursery and school envelopes returned.
Finally we are able to reward our top readers this year with a special prize draw for a surf course with Coast2Coast surf school.
What about nursery?
The nursery take part in Read-a-thon as well but instead of keeping track of how many hours they read for, nursery pupils count how many books they read and colour in books on a ‘bookshelf’ to keep track. They also have separate prizes.
Who runs the library?
Volunteers who give up an hour or more of their time each week run the primary school libraries. Many parents choose to volunteer to be in the library when their child’s class is there. It is a great opportunity to help out in the school while getting to know your child’s class. If you are interested please get in touch. Full training is provided. The libraries simply couldn’t run without our team of parent volunteers.
Any questions or comments? Want more information?
You can find out more about Read-a-thon and download pupil pack pages from our website www.ourlocality.org/readathon and you can follow us on Facebook at “Dunbar Primary School Read-a-thon 2012”
If you have any further comments, suggestions or questions please email Janet McDougall Welch at jmcdougallwelch@gmail.com
