ROME, GA—The Rome City Schools Reading Incentive Program is underway, and each RCS school has celebrated that start with a special kick off.
The early morning mist still hung in the air on Thursday, Aug. 18, as Main Elementary students arrived for a new school day, only to be welcomed at the double doors by their good friend, Willie the Wolf.
Along with RCS Reading Incentive Director, Julie Reid, Willie greeted students with wide smiles, big hugs and a reminder to do their reading homework and keep their reading logs.
Principal Dr. LaRoyce Sublett welcomed Willie to join him for the morning announcements as he reminded students to complete their 20 minutes of reading each night and record that time in their reading logs. With the goal of inspiring a love of reading, MES looks toward a goal of 12,000 books by Christmas and 25,000 books by May 2023.
"This is an exciting program,” Sublett said, “because it gets the students involved and excited about reading."
He explains that MES goes the extra mile to promote the reading program and make sure that students and parents know how to engage and achieve reading goals.
"I do a weekly newsletter to let parents know to encourage their children to read,” he explained. “We send out a blast to encourage our kids to participate, and of course we communicate the importance of reading throughout all of our classrooms.”
Sublett said that this will be the third year of implementing the Reading Incentive Program at MES and each year, the participation is all in.
The Read Like a Wolf 2022-2023 program at MES includes incentives along the way such as drawstring bags, T-shirts, Rome Braves baseball games and even challenges between Sublett and Willie.
"The kids get really excited about this program, the incentives and the crazy things that they see me do, which is their favorite part,” Sublett smiled. "It breaks it down to a level where they see me participating and they say, ‘if Dr. Sublett can do it and he's reading, then I can do it too and it's going to be exciting.’”
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