Reading Competition - Jill C.

Reading is a great way to go on an adventure without even leaving the house. If you want to go on an adventure through a book, you should join Reading Team. It is a fun way to converse with various books that other people have read that are on the team while attending after-school meeting on Tuesdays until 4:00 or 4:30. Miss K and Mrs. Weaver are our GREAT, PHENOMENAL, AMAZING (there aren’t enough adjectives in my vocabulary to describe them.) coaches.

In order to become a member of the Reading Team, you had to have signed up in Miss K’s room. Then you have to have a minimum of 8 books read by the competition date. You also have to complete a character sheet and 5 question cards for all of the books you read in the 42 books previously selected by IU8. (The character sheet consists of the name of the book, the author, setting, at least 3 main characters and their traits, and a summary of the book.) All of the books that were chosen for Reading Team are on a book cart in Miss K’s room. YOU MUST COMPLETE THE CHARACTER SHEET AND CARDS BEFORE YOU GET A NEW BOOK!! This is very important because when it comes time for the competition, it is EXTREMELY helpful to look over your character sheets to refresh your memory on important details in the books that you read. Also, if is very fun and effective when you and your teammates quiz each other with the note cards previously written for the books.

In previous years, the competition has been amazing. All members leave early from school (missing ninth period) in order to arrive at Meyersdale School to have ample time to eat an early supper and have time to be organized into the various classrooms in the building. Meyersdale School is huge because the building consists of the elementary, middle, and high school. The food at Meyersdale is great. After dinner, all of the teams are assigned to the many rooms and are matched up with an opponent. There is also a moderator (person who reads the questions and/or interprets the answers given by the teams) and a scorekeeper assigned to each room as well. The moderator will then alternate questions to each team. If the team answers the question correctly then they get the point, but if they answer incorrectly, the other team has a chance to steal the point. However, if no one gets it right, no points are awarded. The only bad things that have occurred in the past were some of the answers to tricky questions were either too specific or completely incorrect. This happened because the moderator hadn’t read the books, and they were just banking off of the people who wrote the questions to be correct. If the moderator was unsure of the answer given by the teams, they ask the scorekeeper for their opinion.

After all of the 20 questions per team, whichever team has the most points wins the round and moves on to the next round. There are three rounds of questions. After all of the teams have completed their three rounds, all of the points are tallied up to choose first, second, and third places. (Various teams are awarded first, second, and third place because of different age groups.) After the awards ceremony, members head for Johnstown and return to Westmont Middle School around 8:30 p.m.All in all, Reading Team is an awesome club to join if you love to read. The books, practices, competition, the coaches – everything about it is great. Reading Team disciplines and improves your reading skills by a mile. This year’s reading team did extremely well at the competition this year. Both teams, Thing 1 and Thing 2 got second place.