Reading Team takes top honors!
The Meyersdale Area Elementary School Reading Team earned the title of Grand Champions at the Fall 20204 Interscholastic Reading Team Competition.
We are the champions!
The Meyersdale Elementary Reading Team took top honors as Overall Grand Champions at the Fall 2024 Interscholastic Reading Team Competition! Hosted by the Bellwood-Antis School district, this year’s competition welcomed students from more than 30 school districts.
The Championship Meyersdale Area Elementary Reading Team includes: Harper Berkley; Carter Bennett, team captain; Natalie Murray; Channing Christner; Gibson Hoover; Ella Ferris; Ashton Miller; Lorenzo Valentine and Valerie Sechler. The team is led by teachers Cay Helinski and Carrie Long. This is the first championship team in nearly 10 years!
“The kids have worked extremely hard preparing, reading books, filling out story guides and taking the ARs on the books. They also studied their story guides in preparation for the competition. We had several meetings during the school day and then one practice after school the day before the competition,” explained Helinski.
The Interscholastic Reading Competition has been in existence since 1990 and provides over 1,600 students in grades 4 through 12 the opportunity to test their knowledge about books they have read. Students are given a list of 40 books to read in preparation for the three-round competition.
These remarkable readers have spent the last several months in preparation, carefully reading the books on the list. Carter Bennett went above and beyond, reading every book on the list, earning the designation of Team Captain. Overall the team earned 68 points in three rounds of competition. A total of 34 teams competed in this year’s event.
“We are very proud of this group of hard-working students and how well they represented Meyersdale. It was so much fun to see their determination pay off and experience the excitement as they were named the grand champions. Congratulations again Red Readers,” concluded Long.