The Scholastic Readers Cup

Growing up, you will find me curled up in my bed with a book. I started reading at the age of 5 years old, then I enrolled in a public school when I was 6 and instead of enrolling as a prep student, I got accelerated to grade 1 because I passed the reading entrance exam and medyo advance yung reading comprehension ko for prep. Naks! :))

I began loving books even as a kid. I remembered saving up to buy books and I started collecting children's series. Anyone collected Sweet Valley Twins, Archies, Charlotte's Web, etc.? And it's true that reading takes you everywhere! With books, it took me to farthest places, discovered so many things and I learned a lot.

 I'm happy to share with you that Scholastic, a publishing company behind Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and other bestselling series, spearheaded an interschool literacy contest poised to become one of the premiere literacy awards in the country—the Scholastic Readers Cup.

A pic with Clifford made my day. :)

I was invited to attend the Scholastic's Readers Cup held at Rockwell Tent. It was an event where they gave recognition and paid tribute to educators for excellence in the field of literacy. The Readers Cup aims to recognize literacy educators (teachers, librarians, principals and schools) for outstanding work in improving literacy in their school.  

The Scholastic Readers Cup awarded the top 12 schools whose students read the most number of books from 107 participating schools.  The principals and coordinators of the top three schools with the highest growth in reading comprehension were also awarded. Lastly, the head librarians of the top three schools that achieved the highest average in books read by students were also awarded. 

In addition to the Readers Cup Awards trophies, plaques of appreciation were given to all of Scholastic’s partner schools and Special Citation Awards were given to a handful of schools whose partnership with Scholastic has resulted to exemplary literacy practices worth emulating.

Most of all, the event marked a significant achievement for Scholastic and its partner schools for recording an astounding ONE MILLION BOOKS READ by students in School Year 2013-2014, a tremendous leap from last School Year’s recorded 230,000 books read. 

Father Miguel Samaniego, School Head of St. Thomas Academy in Sto. Tomas, Batangas, commented on AEP’s impact in their school, “We have seen significant changes in our kids. Since they have been reading more books, they have a wider vocabulary and better comprehension skills. Their communication skills have improved too.  They now appreciate that reading is enjoyable.”

Father Noel B. Magtaas, President of the Oblates of St. Joseph Schools, a consortium of nine schools, also shares his experience with AEP. “When I was visiting schools before Scholastic came in, I would often visit the libraries, and I would see empty libraries.  But when we enrolled with Scholastic, the love for reading became very evident among our students.  Right now we have a very happy problem.  We have overflowing libraries, and there is an emergent need to create more space in our libraries.  We’re very happy to see a change in the lifestyle of our students.”

The Company kept us entertained with their beautiful renditions of popular songs.

One of the most exciting part was discovering these awesome, awesome dessert table! 

If you will look closely, you might find your fave Scholastic books as butter cookies. Food for the brain indeed! So coooool!!!

With Scholastic’s heroes straight out of the pages of books: Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark of The Hunger Games, Me, Emily Elizabeth, the owner of Clifford the big, red dog, and Harry Potter.

This recent milestone is a clear testimony of the hard work that Scholastic’s partner educators have put in to help their students achieve greater heights in reading and comprehension.  Indeed, it is an affirmation of Scholastic’s global call to action, READ EVERY DAY.  LEAD A BETTER LIFE.

Thank you Scholastic for having me! Continue to inspire people to read and to honor our educators. :)