By ALYSA PHILLIPS
Alysa@newsroom.byu.edu
Utah County students have reached their goal of reading one million books for the millennium.
In response to the Utah State Office of Education's challenge to read one million books by May 2000, students and teachers in the three districts in Utah County - Alpine, Nebo and Provo -- have pushed to read their share. Students reached their goal on February 14, with a total of 1,050,079 books read.
The latest total has reached 1,557,958, according the Web-based progress reports. Alpine students have read 823,094 books, Nebo students have read 440,629 books and Provo students have read 318,803 books.
When the challenge was issued in May 1999, educators estimated that each of the nearly 80,000 students in the county would need to read an average of 23 books each, said Michael Robinson, Alpine School District public information officer.
But elementary students have been doing the majority of the reading, averaging 40 books each, according to progress reports.
Teachers and principals have offered a variety of rewards to students who reach their goals. Cascade Elementary Principal Georgia Davis has agreed to spend the day on the roof in her pajamas, throwing candy and doing the Macarena if students reach their goal of 20,000 books.
'Unfortunately the goal has already been reached,' she said.
Davis won't spend her day on the roof until May, when the contest is officially over.
Other incentives include posters, assemblies, classroom awards and school-wide read-a-thons, Davis said. Community volunteers are also offering their time to help students read, she said.
Thermometers that track the county's progress have been posted in most of the schools, said Carol Wood, reading facilitator at Wilson Elementary in the Nebo district.
But the program is more than a contest.
'It helps students to be aware that they need to read and that the more they read the better they become,' she said.
The program also brings parents into the picture, she said.
The purpose is to encourage family reading, said Marne Isakson, literacy curriculum specialist for the Provo School District. It is a community effort, she said, and students are challenged to read more books than they have ever read before.
'Kids are becoming readers like crazy,' she said.
The individual schools proposed reading goals last May. Of the elementary schools in the district, 16 have already passed their goals, she said. Books will be donated to libraries of those schools that reach their goals, giving students the opportunity to directly help their schools, she said.