March Is National Reading Awareness Month: Whooo’s Reading Launches Month-Long Reading Marathon
San Diego, CA (PRWEB) March 02, 2016 -- The revered NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament has nothing on Whooo’s Reading’s 31 Million Minute Marathon that is challenging students in schools and districts across the nation to read 1 million minutes per day for the 31 days of March. The program will run the entire month of March, designated as National Reading Awareness Month, kicking off on March 1.
Developed by Learn2Earn, Whooo’s Reading is a platform that makes reading fun by giving students in grades K-8 the power of choice, allowing them to read fiction or nonfiction material while incorporating online game elements preferred by today’s digital natives. It also encourages students to improve specific standards-aligned reading and writing skills and become more confident in writing for authentic audiences, including classmates and family members.
Classes must log their reading every single day to win one new Owl Accessory each week—these accessories are used to customize their unique Owlvatar. A national leaderboard will keep tally of the minutes read and students can keep track of their progress when they log into their personal accounts. At the end of March, the top three classes along with the school that logs the most minutes read will receive Nook reading tablets to raffle off amongst eligible students.
“Since introducing our platform in 2013, the Whooo’s Reading program has morphed into this phenomenal learning tool that has seen over 180 MM minutes read by students served by over 39,000 teachers across the country,” said CEO and co-founder of Whooo’s Reading, Raphael Menko. “What has played out in classroom after classroom has been astonishing—we see students decidedly determined to read every chance they get. Whooo’s Reading is not only fun, but is proving to significantly impact engagement and motivation levels as well as drive reading scores exponentially higher. ”
A survey of more than 2,700 students in grades one through five released in September 2015, revealed that a year of consistently using the platform resulted in students significantly increasing the text complexity of the books they chose, as determined by Lexile measures. The increase in text complexity was particularly pronounced for students who began the year reading books that were below-grade level difficulty. For example, the books read by struggling third-grade readers increased in text complexity by more than 300L on average while books chosen by normal to strong readers in that grade level increased by an average of 120L.
To compete in the monthly challenge, students’ school or teacher must be using Whooo’s Reading. Teachers and students interested in registering can go to Whooo’sReading.org. Use #31MillionMinutes to check progress or track the reading of your own class or school.
About Learn2Earn
Learn2Earn is a young startup company focused on providing a 21st-century alternative to traditional literacy programs and school fundraising platforms. Unlike other reading or fundraising programs, their service is child-centric rather than educator-centric, meaning everything they develop is focused on benefitting the children who use it, on making reading fun, and improving specific reading and writing skills as outlined in the Common Core State Standards. In the area of fundraising, they offer something that most fundraising companies don’t: an educational platform for schools to use to raise money. Students aren’t selling; they’re improving their reading skills. For more information, visit https://www.learn2earn.org
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Charlotte Andrist, Nickel Communications, http://www.nickelcommpr.com, +1 (770) 310-5244, [email protected]
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