Elementary students flip pages for Rebel Reading Challenge
Police on horseback.
Security directing traffic into the overflow parking lot.
Swarms of people.
You would think a rock concert or basketball game was happening at the Thomas & Mack Center. But at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday?
It’s 7,000 screaming fourth- and fifth-graders, the largest gathering of Clark County School District elementary school students ever, accompanied by their 500 teachers.
They fill only a third of the seats but sound louder than the crowd at a UNLV Rebels basketball game, says teacher Ken Morrow as the high-pitched and uninhibited shrieks of children ring in his ears.
The Korean pop song "Gangnam Style" just started.
Morrow does the signature dance with his fifth-grade Robert Taylor Elementary School students. But this isn’t just a play day, the children soon discover.
UNLV’s mascot, Hey Reb, appears in the bleachers, and the arena goes dark except for the screen hanging over center court, illuminating white letters against a black background.
"What if you couldn’t read this right now? Would you feel alone?"
The monumental gathering kicks off the monthlong Rebel Reading Challenge, pitting the classes of 37 elementary schools against each other to see whose students can read the most pages. The goal is to read a cumulative 3 million pages, topping last year’s mark by 500,000 pages reached by 34 schools. Last year’s winning school was Wynn Elementary School, near Sahara Avenue and Decatur Boulevard, where students read 76,329 pages.
This year’s winning fourth- and fifth-grade classes will return to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for a basketball game, where students will receive backpacks full of goodies and teachers will be given $250 gift cards.
Spread the Word Nevada, a nonprofit dedicated to literacy, also gave each student a book Wednesday, said Caroline Ciocca, community relations director for SuperPawn, which started the challenge four years ago with UNLV athletics and eight participating schools.
SuperPawn would like to include all 217 district elementary schools, but there’s the cost of transporting students, which SuperPawn covers, said Ciocca, explaining that each class tracks the number of pages read by students, who must turn in sheets signed by parents confirming their reading.
"Students are there every Monday with their reading cards," said Cindy Carr, another fifth-grade Robert Taylor teacher who has participated in the reading program all four years.
She said the school usually offers small incentives to read to students, like gift cards to local restaurants.
"But this is huge," she said of the Henderson school, where eight in 10 students live in poverty. "Half these kids’ families don’t have cars."
The day wasn’t just a break from the norm for students, but an exposure to opportunities, like college, that students can reach if they apply themselves, UNLV President Neal Smatresk said.
"It starts with your ability to read," he told the 7,000 students after competing in a basketball challenge with Clark County Superintendent Dwight Jones.
The excitement seemed to soak into 10-year-old Robert Taylor student Jade Cauilan.
"This place is awesome," he said, noting that he used to hate reading but has grown to like the "Dragonbreath" and "Goosebumps" series.
He has his eyes on those basketball tickets.
Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@review journal.com or 702-383-0279.
