At Sierra Vista Elementary, the 'reading challenge' is accepted

Sierra Vista Elementary School librarian Suzanne Gonzales admits that as a child, she would rarely be found in her school’s library.

“I didn’t care about the books at my library,” she said. “They were not interesting to me.”

But a lack of interest was not the only reason for her reluctance when it came to reading. Gonzales tells the 20 classes that visit the library each week that she couldn’t read very well as a child.

“I see them look up at me, it kind of validates the way some of them are feeling,” she said.

Some of the students at Sierra Vista are experiencing the same reading struggles that Gonzales faced as a child. In order to help, she made it her goal this year to get students excited about reading — not just one book, but multiple books.

She decided to devise a challenge that encouraged students to pick up a book and start reading. Students’ reading habits are tracked, and they are rewarded after they read a certain number of books.

Prizes such as keychains, erasers and colored pencils, are given to students who have read between 10 and 80 books. Students who have read between 90 and 120 books have their choice of several picture, coloring, and sticker books. A special prize for students who have read more than 130 books is the opportunity to be “librarian for a class,” where they read and teach a lesson to their classmates.

The rules regarding how many read pages count toward the challenge have changed each month since the school year began. In October, kindergarten through second-grade students needed to read at least one book, cover to cover, and third- through fifth-grade students needed to read at least 70 pages of a book in order to make a mark on the reading list. All grade levels must provide a summary of what they read to Gonzales.

To track the number of books students have read, their names are posted on a list outside the library. The list features spots for students who have read 10, 20, 30, 40, up to 100 books.

“I wasn’t a big fan of reading since the first grade, but then when Mrs. Gonzales started doing this book challenge, I got more interested into reading,” said Genevieve Encinias, a fifth grade student .

Encinas, who has read 84 books so far, said she wants to read 116 more books so she can hit the 200 mark.

Her classmate, Christina White, has read more than 200 books since the challenge began.

“You read 10 books and then you get a prize and Mrs. Gonzales makes it a bit more fun,” White said.

Gonzales said she plans to continue the reading challenge through December and is eager to see how high those numbers go. To her, the prize is seeing students getting excited about reading, enjoying being in the library, and finding their inner confidence with every book read.

“The best part of it is seeing the kids who were really struggling. I can see it in their eyes that they’re becoming excited about reading,” she said.

Gino Gutierrez is the good news reporter at the Albuquerque Journal. If you have an idea for a good news story, you can reach him at goodnews@abqjournal.com or at (505)-823-3940.