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Thursday, August 21, 2014

Scholastic Readers' Cup: Philippine Schools Awarded in Literacy Contest



Do you love books?  Would you prefer reading e-books or physical books?  In today's internet era, we sometimes wonder if children still go to the library, appreciate books, borrow them and actually read them at home.  Is the term "bookworm" still applicable to children and teens born in this millenium?


Fear not.  Students in Philippine schools, particularly in the provinces who has limited access to ipad, kindle and other electronic gadgets, are still very much into reading physical books. Supported by a program by Scholastic, these schools are monitored and are challenged to improve literacy and develop the love of reading among their students.



Scholastic, Inc., the publishing company behind Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and other great titles, held its first inter-school literacy contest last August 19, at the posh Rockwell Tent in Makati City.

The Readers Cup aims to recognize literacy educators (teachers, librarians, principals and schools) for outstanding work in improving literacy in their school. 



The winners of the Readers Cup were chosen from 131 schools who participated in Scholastic’s Assessment and Enrichment Program (AEP) and Independent Reading Program (IRP).  AEP and IRP are premiere end-to-end literacy solution programs that schools subscribe to, producing remarkable and measurable improvements in students’ reading abilities. 

The passion of helping students read well and meaningfully is a shared purpose of Scholastic and its school partners.  It is that common objective that fuels the vision for the Readers Cup: a tribute to the tireless teachers, librarians and principals whose work and leadership paved way for students to become better readers and learners.



Mr. Frank Wong, Head of Scholastic Asia, who is based in Singapore said, “We are not stopping children from reading e-books, but rather, we would like to influence them to appreciate physical books as well.  For our program, we target pre-school to grade school children who are too young to jump in using e-books.”



                                                                                                                                   
The Scholastic  Readers  Cup awarded the top three schools in varying categories including “Highest Increase in Total Number of Books Read per school”, “Highest Average number of Books Read per Child”, “Highest Average Lexile* Growth per student” and the “Highest Average Number of Books Read per Student”.

With prestige and honor on the line, the Scholastic Readers Cup is set to raise the bar for literacy in the Philippines.  No matter what schools end up winning at the Readers Cup, it is clear that the real reward lies in being able to influence each student to become a better reader giving way to a better life.

*The Lexile growth refers to Lexile scores; reading scores used by Scholastic to gauge reading levels.  


To learn more about Scholastic, Inc., please visit http://www.scholastic.com/home/