BW Library Sponsors Summer Reading Program

Belleville West Wins Follett Challenge

Belleville West High School has been named the grand prize winner of the third annual Follett Challenge, a competition to identify, reward and promote the most innovative teaching and learning programs. The school, part of the Belleville Township High School District 201, won for its cutting-edge “Community of Readers” program, which challenges students in each grade level to become avid and engaged pleasure readers.

The program, in its fourth year, was the brainchild of the school’s English department as it explored ways to encourage students to read for sheer pleasure, in addition to reading for assignments. “We saw too many students who were apathetic about reading, and we watched as our own classes sometimes settled into ruts,” said John Lodle, Belleville West’s English department chair. “We wanted to share our personal passion for books as well as spark new enthusiasm for reading in our students.”

Each grade level at Belleville West is challenged to read one million pages for fun. In its first year, the school’s freshmen read an average of 2,430 pages each, translating to more than 1.4 million pages total for the class.

“The program has resulted in a change in the whole culture of our school, and it also resulted in some impressive gains on our school’s standardized test scores,” Lodle said. “When we heard about the Follett Challenge, we saw a way to share our excitement about what we are doing at our school.”

The $200,000 Follett Challenge annually provides a forum for K-12 schools to share inspiring stories of how their innovative programs are preparing students for the demands of the 21st century.

“Belleville West’s program is helping create literate, confident readers who are ready to tackle college and career challenges,” said Tom Schenck, president, Follett School Solutions. “We salute them for their impressive program, and all the schools that showed off their effective approaches to 21st century learning in this year’s Follett Challenge.”

Belleville West, which last month was announced as one of the contest’s four semifinalists, will earn a total of $65,000 in products and services from Follett, one of the largest education solution providers in the country.

“We plan to add new books, ebooks, and subscriptions from Follett to our school’s library,” Lodle said. “As we see more and more of our students reading on tablets, laptops and cell phones, we’re especially excited about the opportunity to add new ebooks to our library’s collection.”

Belleville West’s video submission has been viewed on the Follett Challenge website more than 2,800 times, which has contributed to the English department’s goal of helping to share the “Community of Readers” program concept with other schools across the country.

“Knowing teachers in other districts have learned about what we’re doing through the Follett Challenge is very gratifying,” Lodle said. “And we’d like to use our success in this contest to work with other schools in our district to develop similar programs.”

According to Sue Adelmann, one of six Follett Challenge judges, Belleville West clearly stood out in this year’s competition.

“What touched us all is the amount of outreach the school had with the program in the context of the million books,” said Adelmann, senior director/market intelligence, Follett School Solutions. “You could clearly see that the school has successfully moved the needle and changed kids’ lives.”

The other three semifinalists were: Albert P. Terhune Elementary School in Wayne, N.J.; Memorial and Thomas Jefferson middle schools in Fair Lawn, N.J.; and Wayland Union Schools in Wayland, Mich. Each earned $35,000 in Follett products and services. An additional six $5,000 prizes (in products and services) were awarded to the “People’s Choice” winners – those schools whose video submissions received the highest number of online votes from the public. All four semifinalist schools also won People’s Choice honors.

For more information on the Follett Challenge, visit www.follettchallenge.com.

Belleville West Classes Celebrate Reading

To recognize the remarkable reading accomplishments of Belleville West students, the English Department sponsored a reading celebration on Friday, May 9.  Belleville West students read more than 5.2 million pages (more than one million pages per class) of pleasure reading during the 2013-2014 school year.

The reading celebration included a Skype visit with author Joelle Charbonneau, a book swap held in the BW Library, a door decorating contest, book trivia, reading time, literature circle discussions, snacks, and prizes for top readers.

BW Students Read 5.2 Million Pages in 2013-2014

CONGRATULATIONS, BELLEVILLE WEST READERS!  As the 2013-2014 school year draws to a close, each class has read more than one million pages of pleasure reading!  Combined, the students at Belleville West have read a grand total of 5,202,879 PAGES OF PLEASURE READING over the past nine months.

What does that mean?

If those pages were laid end-to-end, they would stretch almost 700 miles—that’s all the way from Belleville West to Dallas, Texas!  Plus another 50 miles!

If one person wanted to read that many pages, he or she would need to read one page every minute for TEN YEARS!  Without ever stopping to eat or sleep!

If you had one penny for every page read by a Belleville West student this year, you would have $52,028!

How did the classes stack up against each other?  The CLASS OF 2017 (the freshman class) read the greatest number of pages this year.  In fact, they read more pages than any class has read since the start of the Million Page Challenge in 2010.  But the CLASS OF 2015 (the junior class) read the most pages per student this year.

The CLASS OF 2017 (the freshman class) has read 1,457,298 pages for pleasure.  That’s an average of 2,429 pages per freshman.

The freshman classes with the highest reading totals for the sixth triad are:

Mrs. Thurnau’s first hour:  1019 pages per student

Mrs. Hunter’s fifth hour:  692 pages per student

Ms. Ursani’s first hour:  681 pages per student

Mrs. Thurnau’s sixth hour:  656 pages per student

Mrs. Short’s fourth hour:  590 pages per student

Ms. Ursani’s second hour:  589 pages per student

Mrs. Thurnau’s fifth hour:  565 pages per student

Mrs. Thurnau’s third hour:  500 pages per student

The CLASS OF 2016 (the sophomore class) has read 1,305,350 pages for pleasure.  That’s an average of 2,246 pages per sophomore.

The sophomore classes with the highest reading totals for the sixth triad are:

Mrs. Spriggs’s fifth hour:  979 pages per student

Mrs. Lewis’s fourth hour:  823 pages per student

Mr. Johnson’s fifth hour:  660 pages per student

Mr. Johnson’s fourth hour:  623 pages per student

Mr. Johnson’s second hour:  585 pages per student

Mrs. Spriggs’s second hour:  563 pages per student

Mr. Reidelberger’s third hour:  563 pages per student

Mr. Reidelberger’s fourth hour:  522 pages per student

The CLASS OF 2015 (the junior class) has read 1,313,817 pages for pleasure.  (That’s an average of 2,838 pages per junior.)

The junior classes with the highest reading totals for the sixth triad are:

Mr. Brunner’s sixth hour:  2,181 pages per student

Mr. Brunner’s fifth hour:  1,260 pages per student

Mr. Brunner’s second hour:  1,124 pages per student

Mr. Brunner’s first hour:  623 pages per student

Mrs. Story’s fourth hour:  619 pages per student

Mr. Spriggs’s fifth hour:  550 pages per student

Mr. Spriggs’s third hour:  484 pages per student

Ms. Sage’s first hour:  481 pages per student

The CLASS OF 2014 (the senior class) has completed 1,126,414 pages of pleasure reading.  (That’s an average of 2,605 pages per senior.)

The senior classes with the highest reading totals for the sixth triad are:

Mr. Garland’s second hour:  1,469 pages per student

Mrs. Short’s second hour:  640 pages per student

Mrs. Lewis’s seventh hour:  514 pages per student

Mrs. Thurnau’s seventh hour:  480 pages per student

Mr. Johnson’s first hour:  459 pages per student

Mr. Brunner’s third hour:  448 pages per student

Ms. Hoelscher’s first hour:  424 pages per student

Mr. Lodle’s sixth hour:  401 pages per student

Congratulations to all four classes!  Each class easily surpassed the goal of one million pages.  Keep reading, Belleville West!

Belleville West Plans Skype Visit with Popular Author