A BOOK-BOUND COMMITMENT
Magic team with Orange County schools to reward students for reading
As music filled every corner of Amway Center on Tuesday morning, thousands of students from Orange County Public Schools filled the seats.
The Orlando Magic were more than happy to let someone else take center stage on their home court.
The Magic teamed with OCPS to start the “Pick, Read & Roll” program, which was designed to encourage fourthgrade students books.
The incentive was on display at Amway Center as 250 fifthgraders occupied VIP seating, stood alongside Magic players, saw their names posted on the giant scoreboard above center court and reaped the benefits of the reading progress they made last year as fourth-graders.
You might call them educational all-stars who left a little starstruck.
Beyond the honored fifthgraders, 8,250 fourth-graders were in the Amway seats cheering to MAGIC read more on their peers and perhaps finding a little motivation in the process that next year they might be the ones on the court.
The Pick, Read & Roll program started in October 2018 and continued throughout the school year. Along the way, the program measured the growth and improvement of each student’s reading skills.
The culmination of the inaugural program year played out at Amway, complete with appearances by Magic players D.J. Augustin, Mo Bamba, Evan Fournier, Aaron Gordon, Jonathan Isaac, Terrence Ross and Nikola Vucevic. Their introductions brought roars from the students.
The players took part in a short question-and-answer session.
Being fathers of older children, Augustin and Ross told the students that they regularly read to their kids. Augustin said his kids enjoy “Pete the Cat” and “The Cat in the Hat,” while Ross said his son likes comics. Ross is a huge comic-book fan.