THE ECHO

Lauren Klein // Managing Editor

What does it take to win a king-sized candy bar and a new book?

Reading a book. As simple as that.

Avon High School has its own reading challenge program through the library. It is run by Teacher Librarian Wendy Kovach with the goal of inspiring students to read more.

Kovach has done the reading challenge almost every year that she’s been a librarian.

“I’ve done a reading contest in every library position that I’ve had,” Kovach said. “This will be my eighth year doing this at Avon. Every year I do some sort of reading contests just to keep kids excited about reading and get a chance to win.”

The reading challenge helps make students excited about reading, allowing the kids to get excited about a prize for reading. Kovach believes that the increased number of winners has helped the popularity of the contest grow.

“Kids get really excited. I think there’s more interest now at the high school level because the prize is better than at middle school,” Kovach said. “And then kids, when they realize, they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, you really do win here’, if there’s like eight kids winning, and it’s you know four different English classes, four different English teachers, kids see it.”

To enter the challenge, all there is to do is read a book and fill out a form on Schoology in the library resources Schoology course.

“Anytime a student reads a book, it can be from the library, it could be from home. It does not have to be a library book; they fill out the little form, and they enter themselves in the reading contest,” Kovach said.

The winners are drawn every month with 8-10 winners getting to win. The prizes are delivered directly to the winner’s English class. Senior Hannah Foster has participated in the reading challenge since middle school and has won approximately 15-17 times.

“It’s a really good way to incentivize you to read,” Foster said. “If you like physical copies of books, you win a free one every time you win! And you get chocolate, which is always a plus!”

Kovach also agrees that the reading challenge is a great way to reward getting into reading.

“I think that the reading challenge is a great way for a student to read anything,” Kovach said. “So maybe they’re not into the books in the library. Maybe they have a favorite author that you know they’ve discovered somewhere else. It’s still a way to get rewarded for reading whatever you want to read.