Students in Darin Bourasa’s fourth grade classroom at St. Francis Elementary School set a goal this year to each read at least 40 books. Bourasa said the “40 Book Challenge” was first created to introduce elementary students to different genres of literature.
“Besides trying different book genres, I also challenged my students to track daily what they read at home and at school to try and reach 40 books by May 29,” Bourasa said.
Students had access to the school media center, Bourasa’s personal classroom library, parent donations from the school Book Fair, as well as a reading app called EPIC, where students could narrow their search of books, concentrating specifically on books that fit their own personal reading levels (which are determined after fall placement testing).
Students tracked and logged each book they read, and got signatures from parents and Bourasa showing that they did the work. At the end of the year, students made a poster showing the number of books they read, at their own reading level.
Bourasa said “If each person in class read 40 books, we would have totaled 1,120 books. Instead, we read 1,639 books, which was 519 more than our set goal last fall!”