School-Wide Reading Competition: March Madness
I blogged a lot about our elementary school’s March Madness reading competition and have tried to answer emails about the rules of engagement. The rules have changed over the last 8 years since we first started. Also, my recollection is hazy at best. All I know is that my kids read like crazy to win that extra P.E. session and we all win in the end, no matter what place their class ends up in.
This year, the competition has started again and I am posting the rules in hopes that it inspires your school to pick up the torch and try this reading competition next year. It’s a lot of fun and I do really notice a marked improvement in my kids’ reading abilities after just one month of reading madness!
MARCH MADNESS READING CELEBRATION
- The Peirce School March Madness Reading Celebration will begin on Friday, March 1, and run through Thursday, April 4.
- The kickoff will take place at our town meeting on March 1 and each classroom will be randomly assigned the name of an actual NCAA basketball team.
- Students will earn points for their team based on the number of minutes read daily at home during March Madness.
- Each student will log their daily reading onto the paper reading log and enter their WEEKLY MINUTES read into an online database AT HOME every Thursday evening.
- Students will hand in the paper copy of their reading log to their classroom teacher every Friday morning and should begin to log their weekly minutes read into the online database on Thursday, March 7. Students should continue to log their weekly minutes read every Thursday evening up until Thursday, April 4.
- Team points earned will be tallied and recorded every week on a large graph in the main hallway.
- Books read in school are not eligible for points.
- Books read as part of nightly reading can be counted. (March Madness reading does not have to be in addition to regular home reading, although we hope students will be more inclined to read).
- There will be a separate point system for grades K-1 and for grades 2-5.
Point System
Read a book (or have it read to you in grades K-1) and record your daily minutes read onto the March Madness Reading Log. A weekly reading log will be sent home every Friday. Every Thursday evening, students (or parents of younger students) will transfer the total number of weekly minutes read into the online database.
Points will be based on the number of minutes read weekly by each class.
Grades K-1 – Every 15 minutes = 1 point
Grades 2-5 – Every 30 minutes = 1 point
Team Bonus Points
90% class participation = 30 points each week
Complete the Team Research form (1 per class) = 15 points
- Name of College:
- Location of College:
- Team Name:
- Team Mascot:
- Team Colors:
Decorate your door or bulletin board = 15 points
If NCAA team makes it to Sweet 16 = 10 points
If NCAA team makes it to Elite 8 = 10 points
If NCAA teams make it to Final 4 = 10 points
You might have noticed that victory will be won through points from reading versus the NCAA team you draw. The tie-in to a real team is a lot of fun. Motivated class moms have written to their NCAA schools and have received small tokens such as tattoos or stickers. Once, UNC even sent plastic drawstring backpack bags.
We always hope our kids will draw UCLA where my husband and I both attended. It has never happened yet though.
Here are the official rules:
Students will earn points for their team based on the number of minutes read daily at home during March Madness.
- Each student will log their daily reading onto the paper reading log and once a week will enter their TOTAL WEEKLY MINUTES read into an online database. This is to be done AT HOME every Thursday evening.
- Students will hand in the paper copy of their reading log to their classroom teacher every Friday morning. They should begin to log their weekly minutes read into the online database on Thursday.
- Students should continue to log their weekly minutes read every Thursday evening up until Thursday, April 2.
- Team points earned will be tallied and recorded every week on a graph in the main hallway.
- Books read in school are not eligible for points.
- Books read as part of nightly reading can be counted. (March Madness reading does not have to be in addition to regular home reading, although we hope students will be more inclined to read).
- There will be a separate point system for grades K-1 and for grades 2-5.
Point System
Read a book (or have it read to you in grades K-1) and record your daily minutes read onto the March Madness reading log. A weekly reading log will be sent home every Friday. Every Thursday evening, students (or parents of younger students) will transfer the total number of weekly minutes read into the online database.
To make it fair for classes that have fewer students, we will base points on the class average for the week. For example, if Ms. Hawk’s class reads 7260 minutes in one week, and there are 22 students in her class, we will divide 7260 by 22 to get an average of 330 minutes. Ms. Hawk’s 330 minutes would be 110 points for that week.
Grades K-1 – Every 15 minutes = 10 points
Grades 2-5 – Every 30 minutes = 10 points
Team Bonus Points
90% class participation = 20 points each week
Complete the Team Research form (1 per class) = 10 points
Decorate your door or bulletin board = 10 points
If NCAA team makes it to Sweet 16 = 10 points
If NCAA team makes it to Elite 8 = 20 points
If NCAA teams make it to Final 4 = 30 points
How about you? Do your kids ever do reading competitions? If so, do you notice that it motivates them to read more?
p.s. Here’s the email from my elementary school:
MARCH MADNESS 2016 – PEIRCE SCHOOL READING CELEBRATION
OVERVIEW
- The Peirce School March Madness Reading Celebration will begin on Friday, March 4 and run through Thursday, March 31.
- The kickoff will take place at our town meeting on March 4 where each classroom will be randomly assigned the name of an actual NCAA basketball team.
- Students will earn points for their team based on the number of minutes read daily at home during March Madness.
- Each student will log their daily reading onto the paper reading log and once a week will enter their TOTAL WEEKLY MINUTES read into an online database. This is to be done AT HOME every Thursday evening.
- Students will hand in the paper copy of their reading log to their classroom teacher every Friday morning. They should begin to log their weekly minutes read into the online database on Thursday, March 10. Students should continue to log their weekly minutes read every Thursday evening up until Thursday, March 31.
- Team points earned will be tallied and recorded every week on a graph in the main hallway.
- Books read in school are not eligible for points.
- Books read as part of nightly reading can be counted. (March Madness reading does not have to be in addition to regular home reading, although we hope students will be more inclined to read).
- There will be a separate point system for grades K-1 and for grades 2-5.
POINT SYSTEM:
Read a book (or have it read to you in grades K-1) and record your daily minutes read onto the March Madness reading log. A weekly reading log will be sent home every Friday. Every Thursday evening, students (or parents of younger students) will transfer the total number of weekly minutes read into the online database.
To make it fair for classes that have fewer students, we will base points on the class average for the week. For example, if Ms. Carey’s class reads 7260 minutes in one week, and there are 22 students in her class, we will divide 7260 by 22 to get an average of 330 minutes. Ms. Carey’s 330 minutes would be 110 points for that week.
Grades K-1: Every 15 minutes = 10 points
Grades 2-5: Every 30 minutes = 10 points
Team Bonus Points
- 90% class participation = 20 points each week
- Complete the Team Research form (1 per class) = 10 points
- Decorate your door or bulletin board = 10 points
- If NCAA team makes it to Sweet 16 = 10 points
- If NCAA team makes it to Elite 8 = 20 points
- If NCAA teams make it to Final 4 = 30 points
Wishing everyone a fun month ahead!
Here’s a PDF of a similar form used to log in the minutes kids reach each week:
p.p.s. Here are some great basketball-themed picture books and chapter books that appeal to both girls AND boys.
Michael Jordan’s mom pens this picture book describing Michael during the years he was cut from his high school basketball team but never gave up. Review from JDaniel4’sMom.
From the Mixed Up Files of Middle Grade Authors has this great post on March Madness on the Bookshelves with middle grade (ages 9 and up) chapter books.
STANFORD WONG FLUNKS BIG-TIME by Lisa Yee
MASON DIXON: BASKETBALL DISASTERS by Claudia Mills
THE REAL SLAM DUNK by Charisse K. Richardson
PLANET MIDDLE SCHOOL by Nikki Grimes
DRAGON ROAD by Laurence Yep
BASKETBALL (OR SOMETHING LIKE IT) by Nora Raleigh Baskin
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This is a wonderful idea! Tying the competition to sports will motivate a lot more children. I have been involved with schools that have reading competitions, but none of them was this well organized.
Hi Barbara,
I’m not sure how long my elementary school has been doing this but we have been there for 8 years and the program evolves each year. This year it’s more computerize and the short book reports have been dropped. Also, less writing of titles and what kids thought (thank goodness). It is really fun and the kids pore around the standings every day and take this very seriously! An extra P.E. is at stake with our wonderful P.E. teacher!!!
Love the idea. We have something similar but at a much smaller level. Our’s is like a simple reading assignment and a sheet to track progress. Parents then give some kind of incentive to finish the chart. It always works 🙂
-Reshama
http://www.stackingbooks.com
Hi Reshama,
I think simple is good too! It seems any kind of competition is motivating to get kids reading more and it also seems to push them over a hump so they continue reading after the contest ends which is such a nice bonus!
Wow! That’s impressive! I look forward to hearing how it goes. My son’s a bit too young to do any kind of reading competition but we did the summer reading program through our library. He was very tickled that he got a book from the library to keep. Maybe he’ll get a chance to do something like this when he’s older. 🙂
Hi Tiffa,
How wonderful that your son earned a book from a summer reading program. I used to earn guppies when I was little and those kind of programs were very motivating. What that a library or school program? Our library has a program for summer reading but with funding cut, it is smaller and smaller each year which is a shame.
I love it that the time counts, not the pages or books – kids have different pace of reading and usually when I hear about a reading competition I am scared yet another parent didn’t think of that. Great job! My little ones (5 and 7) have started reading very early and I was a bit surprised that is even possible but they love books and grow up surrounded by books…It may have a lot to do with my and my brother’s professional lives as we literally NEED as many books as we can find! 🙂
Hi Alexandra,
What do you and your brother do professionally? Anything that needs lots of books is wonderful! Do you make ebook apps by the way?
I am a translator and he is an illustrator 🙂 Ah, we are stuck on our current project, the app to help kids brush their teeth, I wanted to do an ebook for a long time but it takes more time than I could ever imagine!
Hi Alexandra,
An app to help kids brush their teeth is a wonderful idea! God knows I have to nag my kids every night to brush and floss and my little son has a tendency to lie about flossing. They brush but they just don’t like to floss! I hope you get unstuck soon!
Emma reads ALL the time as is, but she does enjoy the competitions.
Hi Maryanne,
It’s so great that Emma loves reading!! Those reading competitions get kids who love reading to go on overdrive and I notice a huge surge in their reading ability after one month of reading non-stop. It helps when their class is placing high too! Right now my 5th grade daughter is in 2nd place and my 2nd grade son is in 3rd place. Grades K and First grade compete against each other. Grades 2nd through 5th compete against each other. I think it helps that my son’s 2nd grade class size is larger than my 5th grader!
I like that it is based on minutes and not pages! I hate when pages is the measurement, it’s so variable. Thanks for sharing your plan at The Children’s Bookshelf, very interesting to hear how others are conducting these kind of reading competitions!
Hi Mom and Kiddo,
Yes, I agree with you! Minutes seems more fair. My 5th grader is also doing a reading fund raiser at the same time — our 5th grade has to raise money for graduation, field trip, class gift, year book etc since they graduate this year — and it’s based on number of pages OR minutes. The donor gets to choose. We went with flat rate.
How fun! I can imagine this motivates a lot of kids! Love the connection to the real teams too!
Hi Ann,
There is so much excitement (and sometimes disappointment too) when the teams are drawn. The kids seem to know a lot about college hoops!
Great idea. I’m sure the kids will love that.
Hi James,
It’s been a big hit at our school! The kids read like crazy and the teachers report a bump in reading comprehension just in time for the standardized tests!
Do you have rewards for classrooms? individual students? or school wide?
Hi Carrie,
The rewards are so simple that I’m always amazed how motivating the contest is.
There are two divisions: Grades Kindergarten and First Grade (per classroom). And Grades 2nd through 5th (also per classroom). The class with the most points wins an extra Physical Education session with our amazing PE teacher.
There used to be recognition at the school assembly meeting for the kids who earned a certain number of points but I’m not sure if they do that anymore. It’s ALL about getting that extra PE class!!!
Hello. Could you explain the online data base, how the students entered their minutes? Is this your program or an outside program?
Thanks.
Hi Doug,
My elementary school set up a Google Doc where students submitted the number of pages or books each week. It tabulated it. In years past, the students used paper forms (but that proved to be too much paperwork to compile the results). The Google Doc was housed on the school’s PTO website which is password protected so you have to login.
I love this idea. This will be our second year doing this and I am looking for some new twists to add. You mentioned completing a team research form. Would you be willing to share that form?
Hi Beth,
Sure! I’ll ask about the team research form. I’ve never seen it but I think it’s just about the school, team and mascot. Kids love the mascot!
I did not read through all of the comments but I was wondering what online resource was used for students to submit minutes? Thanks
Hi Ashley,
It was just a form that was created using Google Docs more recently. Before that, the teachers just hand tabulated the minutes read in each classroom.
Did you assign each class a team?
Hi Kaylene,
Yes, there is a drawing for teams. Each teacher draws a team from the NCAA pool for their classroom. Not all the teams get selected, depending on how many classrooms. There is a small amount of bonus points for how well the actual basketball teams does in the NCAA tournament, but it’s like 5 or 10 points if they make Final Four or Finals…enough to celebrate their basketball success but not enough to affect the reading points.
Hi Kaylene,
Yes, the teachers of each classroom draw their team from a hat. Not all the NCAA teams get picked at our school because we don’t have enough classrooms but that’s fine.
Hi there, I love your ideas about March Madness for reading. However, I was unstoppable open the link for the log forms. Is there a another way to have access to the forms?
Thank you
Cheryl
Hi Cheryl,
Yikes, the link to the log form didn’t work for me either. I must have accidentally deleted that PDF from my blog. I have included a similar reading log form for your reference. The only other info on the form was Student Name, Grade, and Teacher Name. I emailed this to you as well. Hope it helps!