Our Turn: A Reading Marathon has many benefits
Finishing a marathon is a great achievement. It takes a lot of time and concentration. A marathon is 26.2 miles. To get more students to read, NCSS has started a reading marathon. In this marathon a class as a whole has to read 26 books by the end of the month, one book for every mile. Any class who does it gets a prize when it’s all said and done. As a student at NCSS, I get to participate in this, and am enjoying it.
However, I got curious as to why have a competition like this and decided to ask Ms. Ellerson about it.
“There are so many benefits to reading: it helps build vocabulary, improves spelling, strengthens comprehension, reduces stress, improves writing and memory skills, and it broadens your world. The best part is the fact that it costs little to no money if you use local resources in your area, such as the library,” Ms. Ellerson said. As the high school language arts advisor at NCSS, she would know a lot about reading.
Two of the adults from NCSS have recently completed a marathon, Mr. Losch, the school principal, and Mr. Rumney, one of the middle school advisors. This whole reading marathon is a way to support these athletes to finish another marathon.
They have both ran before, but last week they completed the Whistlestop Marathon in Ashland and are running together this weekend to complete the Fall 50 (http://www.fall50.com/ ). This next race (the Fall 50) is for the Mission Continues which is an organization that helps veterans from post 9/11 become more involved in their community again. There are many causes to run for that help support people, ideas, and missions.
“I love the idea of doing a reading marathon to help support Mr. Losch and Mr. Rumney in training for their marathons. Although we aren’t all physically training to run a marathon we can still take the concept and apply it to reading which I think is really great. It can bring everyone together and allow us the ability as a class to complete something together,” Ms. Ellerson said.
Reading may not be a physically hard thing to do, but for some students it is even harder for them to read than run. This puts the idea of exercise in school to mix with academics. For the avid readers in the class, this is a fun activity for them to help their class win a competition. With some class perseverance, they can finish the marathon in the month that they are given. Ms. Ellerson seems to be confident with her class finishing the marathon.
“I’m pretty confident that our class will complete the reading marathon,” she said.
” There are a lot of avid readers in our advisory which I love. It’s nice to see so many students excited to read and continue to read. I believe a lot of students will be lifelong readers in this advisory and that makes me feel really good. The reading marathon only solidifies that.”
All in all, the reading marathon is a great way to get the students support their advisors with their plans, and it gets them to have a friendly reading competition between classes. Some of the students are excited about the marathon, and have been reading a lot. It is not over yet, and the students have high hopes for the completion of this marathon. They will then get to say that they have finished a marathon, in a way.
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