176,438,473. That's how many minutes kids around the world logged this summer in the seventh annual Scholastic Summer Challenge! Open from May 6th to September 6th, 2013, the Summer Challenge program invited kids to log the minutes they spent reading—on behalf of their school or independently—in hopes of beating last year’s reading world record of 95,859,491 minutes. We’re thrilled to announce they surpassed this number just a few weeks after the program began.
This year, approximately 133,000 students from over 4,000 schools participated from every state in the U.S. and from 31 countries around the world, such as Japan, Dubai, Canada, Brazil, Thailand, Venezuela, United Kingdom, and China. Nearly 250 schools logged over 100,000 minutes!
There’s a lot to celebrate today as we announce the schools with the most minutes read. Each of these schools will receive a plaque for their acccomplishment and will be listed in the 2014 Scholastic Book of World Records. The #1 school will be vistited by Captain Underpants author, Dav Pilkey!
Congratulations to all of our winners!
#1 school in the Scholastic Summer Challenge:
- Jackson Elementary School, McAllen, TX, 6,333,482minutes read
Top 20 Schools:
- Jackson Elementary School, McAllen, TX, 6,333,482
- Sun Valley Elementary School, Monroe, NC, 6,042,663
- Dovalina Elementary School, Laredo, TX, 5,359,066
- Liberty Park Elementary School, Greenacres, FL, 4,206,222
- Hill Intermediate School, Houston, TX, 3,039,434
- St. Aloysius School, Baton Rouge, LA 2,933,169
- Odom Elementary School, Houston, TX, 2,771,182
- Hunter’s Creek Elementary School, Orlando, FL, 2,565,217
- Flora Ridge Elementary School, Kissimmee, FL, 2,548,754
- Timber Trace Elementary School, Palm Beach Gardens, FL, 2,288,345
- Reedy Creek Elementary School, Kissimmee, FL, 2,238,484
- Rayford Road Intermediate School, Humble, TX, 2,183,113
- Oakridge Middle School, Clover, SC, 2,122,819
- Worsham Elementary School, Houston, TX, 1,898,592
- Newell Elementary School, Allentown, NJ, 1,885,364
- Coral Reef Elementary School, Lake Worth, FL, 1,673,656
- Stuart Public School, Stuart, NE, 1,639,619
- Raymond Academy, Houston, TX, 1,623,279
- Thompson Elementary School, Houston, TX, 1,604,302
- Riverview Elementary School, Saratoga Springs, UT, 1,495,565
We're also so proud to share that 42 Governors’ Spouses and three Governors joined the Scholastic Summer Challenge as Reading Ambassadors in an effort to further the message about the importance of summer reading and access to books. 500 books were donated to each Reading Ambassador’s school of choice (for a total of 22,500 books) so that students in their states could take home books and read over summer vacation. We're so grateful for their support and partnership.
To see the list of the Top 100 schools, visit www.scholastic.com/summer and to read more about the program and top schools, visit our media room.
