6 Schools Take Top Honors in National Reading Game

6 Schools Take Top Honors in National Reading Game

MVSD Schools Take Top Honors in the Great Reading Games, Learning Ally’s National Reading Event

 

     Schools in the Mountain View School District had an amazing showing in the Great Reading Games, a national audiobook event hosted by Learning Ally, a New Jersey-based educational solutions organization.

     The annual event coincides with the National Education Association’s Read Across America to empower students with learning differences to read with frequency and build strong reading habits.

       At the conclusion of the 7-week competition, four of MVSD’s elementary schools and its two middle/intermediate schools finished in the top 10 of their school brackets.

     Parkview School not only won 1st place in their division for schools new to the program, it also earned the highest score out of all the elementary brackets, and was named the top elementary school in the country. 

     Coming in a close 2nd place for elementary schools was Baker School, taking 3rd was Maxson School and placing 4th was Monte Vista School.

     In the Middle School bracket both Madrid Middle School and Kranz Intermediate School excelled, with Madrid earning 6th place and Kranz earning 8th place. 

          This year, more than 50,735 students from 2,900 U.S. schools read a record-breaking 17.3 million pages. Over 1,500 MVSD students utilized the platform and read over 900,000 pages during the contest. 

     “Learning Ally has provided even our most struggling readers access to incredible reading opportunities and made complex, quality text accessible to all,” said Donelle Soto, Parkview School principal.  “The competition was a great kick start to get our kids reading.  With the support of our teachers and our Literacy TOSA, Leticia Urias, we were able to really charge into reading. We have seen a difference in our kids and they are blooming!”

     Along with the excitement of earning a spot in the top 10, the winning schools earned cash awards and prizes for their reading achievement. 

     Learning Ally's Great Reading Games takes students to a whole new level of reading, helping educators to engage students to use human-read audiobooks to read at or above grade level, double their reading time and triple their reading frequency. Students who compete in the Great Reading Games are three times more likely to excel in reading frequency and 300% more likely to achieve levels of success that tie directly into their academic achievement, and emotional and social well-being. 

      Parents throughout the District are noticing the positive benefits of the program and are happy to see their students excited about reading.

     “Reading Ally has been essential in our home to the point where both of my children succeeded and have been in top placement categories,” said Emma Godinez, a proud parent of a 3rd and 2nd grader at Parkview School.   “I'm beyond thrilled to now be able to say one of my kids took top place in all 3rd grade and my smallest took 4th place in his 2nd grade classroom.  My smallest who didn't even like reading is now wanting to look for new books and titles all on his own.” 

      According to Jeff Lagozzino, MVSD’s Director II of Teaching & Learning, Learning Ally is an amazing resource to support the needs of struggling readers with human-read, high-interest text. 

     “Learning Ally has a library of over 80,000 titles from which teachers can assign as reading and students can also choose their own books,” said Lagozzino.  “With the challenges of distance learning, Learning Ally greatly helped us continue to focus on reading skills and to develop a deep love of reading with our students when traditional libraries were closed. Learning Ally will continue to be an integral part of our teaching of reading in distance and in-person learning for years to come.” 

     MVSD was commended by Learning Ally’s Vice President, Terrie Noland who congratulated the District on one of the most successful implementations of their program they’ve ever seen.

      “We are very proud of all of our schools and students for their outstanding participation in the Great Reading Games,” said Lagozzino.  We greatly appreciate our teachers who work tirelessly to support their students and instill in them a passion for reading and learning.” 

 

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