By Staff
Tracy B. Cieniewicz, Hartselle Enquirer
Falkville has been infested with bookworms this spring.
Reading is Fundamental, Inc. recently honored Falkville Elementary School for student achievement in meeting personal reading goals and for the school's ability to engage community support for children's literacy.
The school was named the large site Alabama state champion of the "Read with Me: 2003 RIF Community Reading Challenge" by Mary K. Braddock, director of the Morgan County Volunteer Center and RIF representative, at a May 6 ceremony.
Braddock presented the school with a certificate of achievement and awarded medals to the school's 86 participating students.
The "Read with Me" state champion flag was also raised.
Falkville Elementary School Media Specialist Gail Ayres said even though the school has been a RIF reading site for three years, this was the first year for the school to participate in the "Read with Me" challenge.
Ayres said the school has already made plans to participate again next year.
Students and 170 Falkville community participants, including family members, local leaders, and employees of Vulcan Materials and Delphi, earned this distinction out of more than 1,100 reading sites and 360,000 children that pledged to participate nationwide.
"The reading challenge helped involve the community as a whole in the reading program at our school," Ayres said. "Our reading challenge has made the community more aware of our reading program and the needs of our students. It showed students the importance of reading throughout your life and the need for literacy in every career."
One large and small site winner was named from each state. Winners were determined through a scoring system that factored the number of children at the site that met reading goals and completed bonus literacy related activities and the number of family and community members who participated in the event.
Ayres said the "Read with Me" challenge is only one of many beneficial aspects of the RIF program.
"The RIF program has given students the opportunity to own books and has increased the awareness of parents to the need for books being read in their homes," Ayres said. "One second grader said that she was going to start her own library because now she has books."
Ayres said Falkville kindergarten through fifth grade students have received four free books each through the RIF program this academic year.