At the end of every school year we take the time to celebrate all the reading the students have done throughout the year. It's an important life habit to see where you started and take some time to reflect on the growth you made during the year. Here in the library, we give the students different reading challenges, encourage participation in literacy contests, and then we celebrate those who completed them by the end of the year.
To encourage the students to broaden their horizons and find out what kind of books they like to read, we give them 6 Genre Challenges. Those who completed 4 or more different kinds get special recognition for their effort. This year there were 99 students who participated completeing a total of 309 callenges! The following students completed 4 or more challenges:
4 Challenges: Justin Chi, Blake Bland, Valeria Kappeli, Andres Ruiz, Mia Silver, Emilio Gudiño, Ella Kadar, Sophia Amaral, Daniela Carvajal
5 Challenges: Juliana Creighton, Patarick Fangman, Sophie Duque, Juan Clavijo, Emma Kupferschmied, Sienna Aronson
6 Challenges: Taylor Hedrick, Anjelica Prasad, Emily TenBrink, Veronica Tinoco, Laila Hartman, Kiara Neiman, Camila Fonseca, Sam Spier, Matteo Gaggion, Elena Calderon, Mia Fine, Gabriel Milgram, Riley Scoggins, Conor Gill, Arianna Niehaus, Eva Bellisario, Jonathan Milgram, Alexia Fernandez, Andi Bland,
The 5th graders are given the extra special challenge of reading 30 different books throughout the school year. However, the challenge comes not only in the amount, but also in the genres where they need to read 17 fiction books of different subgrenas, 9 nonfiction books, and various other award winning books. This challenge is given to encourage growth mindset as well as for the students to value the different kinds of literature that they read.
This year the 5th grade students who completed the challenge were: Cyril Eytang, Natalia Orduz, Adriana Cortes, Claudia Castro, Katy Calderon, Gabriel Cutie, Daniel Bonaduce, Ruby Davidson
Each year we open up three contests to encourage the students to be creatures of literature, not just consumers. These contests are:
This years winners are:
Youngbery Contest -
Valeria Picirilli for her book A Snowman Attack
Valeria Kappeli for her book The Lost Forest
Emily Ten Brink for her book Dorothy and the Enchanged School
Ella Kader for her book Poem the Feeling
Zoey Cantatore for her book Dogworld: Joey Save the Trees
Camila Herrera for her book Justice
Juliana Robles for her book Hadawako & Oheo
Meghan Esterly & Geraldine Pena for their book Lost and Found
Andi Sloane Bland & Regina Gonzalez for their book Friends Meet Friends
Adrian Chasi, Alejandro Ruiz & Gabriel Cutie for their book Ms. Montealegre’s Brave Adventures
Roberto Zuniga for his book The Wendigo
Golden Gecko -
Justin Chi for his cover of Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties
Valeria Kappelli for her cover of Real Friends
Caroline Amaral for her cover of Beagles
Adriana Cortes for her cover of Oh, the Places He Went
Book Trailer of the Year -
Nolan Myers for his trailer of 5,000 Awesome Facts (About Everything)
Daniela Carvajal for her trailer of Cuentos de Buenas Noches Para Niñas Rebeldes
Juliana Robles for her trailer of The Boy on Cinnamon Street
Carlos Bonilla for his trailer of Demon Dentist
On Friday we enjoyed our last Reader Leader trip to the Arthur Gough Aldea in Rio Oro. Creating this opportunity for students to model a love for literacy and get a chance to interact and show empathy for others has been invaluable. The attitude the Aldea kids have towards books has changed in many of the kids, some of them were even volunteering to read aloud this time. The partnership that we formed this year has truly been a special experience for all and we look forward to exploring it more next school year.
Research shows that students who read over the summer maintain or improve their reading achievements from the school year. Most students who do not read during the summer show a loss in their reading achievement from the previous year.
To support our students in this area, if you are returning to CDS next year, we would like to encourage you or your student to check books out for the summer. The policy is as follows:
Prep - 2nd grade must come in with their parents and can check out a maximum of 10 books
3rd - 5th grade can turn in a parent signed permission slip/note and check out a maximum of 5 books
MS/HS/parents can check out a maximum of 10 books
All summer check out books are due Friday, August 23rd, the first Friday of the school year. Students will not be able to check out any new books until books checked out during summer are returned. If any book is lost or damaged, the person responsible will be charged the cost of the book to be paid in the Business Office.
Summer check out starts June 7th and finishes June 13th.
We look forward to seeing you and encourage you to read, read, read!
