ELLINWOOD — Quarterly parties for students who reach their Accelerated Reader goals proves learning to read can be fun. Students in grades two through four celebrated their latest AR goals by taking part in several “minute to win it” games organized by librarians Amy Hammeke, Jean Garner, grade school library assistant Kala Robl and library substitute Lindell Redington.

“With our Accelerated Reader (AR) program, we begin by STAR testing,” Ellinwood School and Community Library Director Sheri Holmes explained in an email to the Tribune.

Students take a test to determine their level. We then assist students in finding books within their range. Their goals are set by AR and are achievable in a nine weeks period of time. Students take tests to meet their goals. Tests allow teachers to track students’ progress in reading comprehension and skills, as well as areas where improvements can be made.

Students who reach their goals are invited to take part in a quarterly AR party. Those who come up short spend the corresponding time reading quietly under supervision in the classroom, Garner said.

Garner described game stations set up around the room, which included: penny stacking with one hand; picking up cereal with chopsticks; forehead-to-mouth cookie game; bracelets made by stringing pieces of cereal on a pipe cleaner with one hand; cup stacking; marshmallow tossing; and, finally, a race to see who could blow a marshmallow to the finish line with a straw.

Students competed against a partner at each station for bragging rights, she said. They had “a minute to win it.”
For more about ways reading is celebrated in Ellinwood, turn to Ellinwood School and Community Library Director Sheri Holme’s column, Check it Out, in our Entertainment section.