ELKHART — Two Monger Elementary School teachers read between the lines and decided a fun competition was needed to get their third graders ready for the statewide ‘IRead’ exam next week.
This year Indiana third graders are required to pass a reading skills test …the ‘IRead’ … before they can move to the fourth grade.
Teachers Lisa Baugh and Mike Swanson knew some of their students’ reading abilities needed a boost and wanted to find a way to encourage reading …outside of the classroom.
Baugh’s and Swanson’s classrooms are challenging each other to see who could read the most hours by the end of ISTEP. A “reading tree” sprouted in a hallway with students’ names decorations denoting every hour they read. A daily tabulation is posted with the reading status of each classroom.
A fitting prize for the winner … a pizza party! And names will be entered in a March 30 drawing where two winners get bicycles.
