Tales from Thailand and beyond: Reading Celebration

The whole month we had a reading challenge for the students. This year the students each made a goal of how many books that they thought they could read in the 27 days we had before our celebration. We added up all their individual goals (with no names) to make a grade goal and then a total Elementary school goal. I personally was shocked at how large our goal ended up being for the month. The total for students and teachers (just under 200 people) was 2,620 books!

The students were going to read to earn money for a bilingual school here in Thailand. If we reached our goal the amount would be matched and if we passed our goal there would be even more money to give to The School of Promise’s library. The students worked so hard and ended up reading 2,827 books! One of our hopes was to encourage the students to work together and do something for others. It was so encouraging to me as I heard many students talk about wanting to reach the goal to help the other school, etc. I am praising the Lord for the changes I have seen in their attitudes as they think of others.

Some of the best things said were....

"I have been reading SO much this month" -second grader who struggles with reading
"We already met our grade goal, but we need to make the school goal" -sixth grade students
"I love being a book worm"- second grader to mom
"I love reading these books"- sixth grade students- who were reading Dr. Seuss books :)
(the 6th graders had read 50+ books that were over 400 pages and met their goal of 224 with books over 70 pages...but they were trying so hard to help the school reach the their goal that they were enjoying some easy, short books during recesses :))
"Do all the students know that we need to each read a book a night to reach our goal"- students asked- two days before the reading celebration