Motivation Found with Winter Reading Challenge

Anika Talyan and Tiona Merritte|January 3, 2023

Media by Anika Talyan

Emily Stockwell, language arts teacher, looks over her bingo chart for the library’s Winter Reading Challenge. The Winter Reading Challenge encourages people to read by giving them an opportunity to enter their name into a raffle for prizes by working on the bingo card. Stockwell said she is excited to do the challenge and that she hopes it motivates her to read genres that she hadn’t earlier.

During elementary school, Nailah Bonner, senior, found her love for reading through reading challenges. The fun nature of those challenges hooked her, Bonner said.

However after she graduated elementary school, she stopped seeing those kinds of challenges. So, when the library started advertising about the Winter Reading Challenge, Bonner saw and said it reminded her of those old elementary reading challenges. Once again, she was hooked.

“I haven’t done it for a long time, and it seems really fun and interesting to get involved in,” Bonner said.

The Winter Reading Challenge is a bingo card detailing different reading challenges that people can pick up at the library. Once a row is completed, the person is then added to a raffle to win a prize. Prizes include a gummy dinosaur and a $15 Dunkin Donuts gift card.

The freedom of the challenge is making her more motivated to read, Bonner said.

“I like to explore books and not have an assigned book,” Bonner said. “It’s better because I get to read what I actually want to read and what interests me.”

  • The new Winter Reading Challenge sponsored by the library encourages people to read by giving them a chance to win prizes if they complete reading challenges. The prizes that can be won include a gummy dinosaur and a yard-long Twix bar.

    Media by Anika Talyan
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  • The Winter Reading Challenge can be done with a bingo card, with students being able to enter a raffle ticket for each row they complete.

    Media by Anika Talyan
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Bonner mainly reads graphic novels and nonfiction books and hopes that the challenge will encourage her to read books that she would have never picked up otherwise.

Last year, students recorded the number of hours they read with coloring sheets and the amount of coloring sheets turned in determined the level of gifts they could get. Brittney Sharitz, librarian, siad this is the first year the challenge will be used with bingo cards.

“We feel like this might be fun because it’s more raffle style and you can pick exactly what you want to win,” Sharitz said.

She is considering alternating between the two versions of the challenge because sometimes it motivates students to do something new.

“We are hoping that students will get back to reading for pleasure,” Sharitz said.

Emily Stockwell, language arts teacher, loves to read and wants her students to love it as well.

“Reading is the key to every other subject,” Stockwell said. “If you can’t read fluently at grade level, then you don’t have the same access to information.”

She said it’s important for students to see that reading isn’t just a kid’s learning thing; it’s a lifelong thing.

Stockwell is excited to do the “share your best book of 2022” challenge because she’d rather hear a book recommendation from people than from Google.

“I think it’s fun to do any kind of challenge like that at any age,” Stockwell said. “It’s also important for me to set aside time to read.”