MacArthur students in every Language Arts class have participated in a Reading Counts competition from November 4 to December 18.  The purpose of the contest was to encourage higher reading totals at the end of the first semester. 

In term three, word counts increased. “Usually all teachers participate, but if a teacher doesn’t want to it’s fine,” said Language Arts Teacher Mr. Gregory Celestino.

This year’s winners include Ms. Caroline Van de Merghel’s period five and Mrs. Vikki Pham’s period one for sixth grade. For seventh grade, Mrs. Heather Rigby’s periods two and six won. Similarly, Mr. Susan Davis’s periods one and two won the eighth-grade division. There are two winners each grade level because the competition was split between honors and benchmark level classes.

The prizes for this competition were gift bags with candy. The prizes were distributed the week before Winter Break after the totals were calculated.

Throughout the competition, there was an active scoreboard in the display case by Principal Ms. Katie Berger’s office. The display was updated once a week and new totals were announced on the morning announcements.

 There were promotional posters around the school to notify students to “Read! Read! Read!”

According to Celestino, this competition was for support and motivation towards students with low word counts or to also help their grades. “If it helps getting RC totals up, then I am happy to run it,” said Celestino

Celestino had devised the competition years ago and took it school-wide.  This is the second RC competition this year for MacArthur.  For this competition, the scores are based on the total from the class and divide that with students and the class with the highest average wins.

At the beginning of the year, MacArthur had a Summer reading competition. Each grade level got a book to read during summer so when you come back to MacArthur you can take a test on it. For the competition, whichever grade level won they got paletas.

During the competition, Berger had been updating students and teachers who are in the lead on the morning announcements.