Stockton second-graders answer the challenge
STOCKTON — Hundreds of Stockton Unified secondgraders were challenged last fall to a friendly competition: read as many books as possible.
Six months and 15,338 books later, everyone is a winner.
The pupils, hailing from Hamilton, Taft, Van Buren, Fremont-Lopez and Monroe elementaries, were selected to take part in a collaborative reading program created in partnership between the district, Stockton Heat hockey team and Mayor Michael Tubbs.
While a winner ultimately will be declared for reading the most hours, all secondgraders at all five schools and their families, are invited to attend the Heat’s final home game for free on Saturday against San Jose. Clearly, it was a success. “We were thrilled with the outcome,” Heat CEO Brian Petrovek said on Thursday. “It was a different approach to touch more kids and get them to read more books, (rather than) having books forced upon them.”
The bigger goal of the program is to ultimately improve reading skills for children who are about to enter third grade.
Having third-graders master reading skills is an important indicator for their academic future, as children who cannot read well by the end of the year fall behind, according to University of the Pacific’s Beyond Our Gates initiative.
The San Joaquin Literacy Report Card for 2015-16 reported only 27 percent of third-grade students in San Joaquin County had reached grade-level proficiency, a drop from 34 percent the previous year.
According to the report, SUSD had the lowest thirdgrade literacy rate — 16 percent — while statewide, 38 percent of third-graders met the benchmark.
Petrovek said the team is interested in continuing the contest for another year and will meet with district officials on potentially adding more schools.
Taft Elementary Principal Jana Brooks is proud of her young students for taking part. In all, 60 secondgraders read more than 1,000 books.
On top of that, twice a month, two Heat players visited the south Stockton campus and participating sites to read with students for half-hour sessions.
The visits became popular for both readers and players.
“Our kids loved it, overall it was a very positive and successful activity,” Brooks said. “So far I have 15 families who will be going to game (and) I’ll be there.”