Bascom earns national book award
LEAVITTSBURG – With the incentive of getting to slime the principal at a school assembly, students in grades kindergarten to second at LaBrae’s Bascom Elementary spent time outside school reading as many books as they could.
School Principal Maggie Kowach said she received word from Scholastic Books that the school’s reading incentive program started last fall was selected for the President’s Award for Exceptional Performance, with the school receiving $500 worth of Scholastic materials.
The award was for the ”What Would You Do for Reading?” effort led by media specialist and book fair chairwoman Debby Engler.
The theme was ”Reading Is So Much Fun, You’ll Get Goosebumps!”
The What Would You Do For Reading? challenge at Bascom became a sticky subject for Kowach, who said that to get students excited about the book fair and reading, she challenged them to spend 800 hours reading outside school in five weeks. If they did, she agreed to let the top reading student in each grade douse her with slime.
The top reading student, second-grader Ryan Graham, read a total of 1,170 minutes outside school. Graham said he likes reading, so it was easy.
Other top readers were Anthony Furbee, first grade, and Zander Brooks, kindergarten.
Kowach said the boys were more eager to get to slime the principal than some of the girls.
”The girls told me they didn’t want to slime my pretty hair. Some of the boys thought differently,” she said.
”We were the only school in the nation to receive the award for What Would You Do for Reading? The entire school got involved. Each teacher had a contest where they decorated their doors, bulletin boards and hallways related to monsters,” Kowach said.
In addition, each teacher also has a wish basket of what books they would like to have in their classrooms. The teachers made monster-themed wish baskets.
Kowach said helping with the effort were local businesses, who had milk jugs made into monster faces placed at their establishments to collect donations for books.