When Being the Consolation Prize Means You Got the Best Prize

At our school we have something called the Reading Counts hat. You get it when you reach a certain number of points. Now, some librarians think that the Reading Counts program promotes an unnecessarily competitive form of reading that reduces it from pleasure reading to a sport. A regurgitation of facts sport where children choose to read only books that have Reading counts tests and only read those books that have the highest point values. Not that I have an opinion on the matter, though...

Well, my friend the lower division librarian has a dream where all children read for pleasure and all children are rewarded for reading whether they reach their goal or not. It just so happened that in years past if you didn't reach your Reading Counts goal, you didn't get to go to the Reading Counts pool party at the end of the year. You had to sit in the classroom while the other kids splashed away outside. So she and I came up with a consolation prize: reading with Bingo!


Here are the 15 third graders who got to read with Bingo and were EXCITED about it! They got into groups of three and read books to Bingo. Reading and Bingo: two great things that go great together.