SA fifth-graders excel in Accelerated Reader
Published 10:38 am Monday, June 6, 2011
COURTLAND—Two Southampton Academy students combined for more than half of their fifth-grade class’s points through a reading program that tests their comprehension of books.
Hunter Britt earned 1,001.1 points and Mia Gamboni garnered 892.4 points for a total of 1,893.5 for the Accelerated Reader Program. The class of 11 students earned a total of 3019 points this past school year for the program, which assigns point values to books based on length and text difficulty .
“I think Mia and Hunter are very bright, motivated, determined girls that are passionate about reading, and they happen to be a little competitive with each other,” their teacher Rachel Pope said.
Their total points should have been much higher, Pope said.
“If we had counted the books that they read that are not on AR it would be crazy,” she said.
Hunter, who plans to read more than 130 books this summer, said her father, Tom Britt, motivates her.
“He’s a really good reader,” she said. “Before he goes to bed every night, he’ll read about an hour or two hours.”
The 11-year-old from Wakefield also credits herself, her mother, Dana Britt, and Mia.
“I’ve always really wanted to read, and I thought reading was really cool,” Hunter said.
Mia attributes her interest in reading to her parents, Tony Gamboni of Franklin and Amanda Pellerito of Suffolk, her grandfather and Hunter.
“She’s the one that encourages me to beat her,” the Franklin 11-year-old said.
Hunter said she hopes to achieve more than 2,000 points next school year, while Mia simply wishes to find more books to read.