Young readers 'courted' in Final Four challenge

ST. PAUL, MN – A yearlong, statewide initiative put on by the NCAA and the Minneapolis Final Four Local Organizing Committee aimed to engage Minnesota third-graders in reading through a tournament-style competition, according to Mara Klecker, writing for the Star Tribune.

Klecker reports that within minutes of announcing that it was time to read, the 26 third-graders in Anna Clickenger’s class at Galtier Community School in St. Paul fell silent and settled into their favorite reading spots.

Sharon Hendrix, the school’s principal, whispered as she looked on, explaining that she’s still delighted to see an entire class become so engrossed in their chosen books.

It may seem like a small miracle to have an entire class remain so hushed and focused, but it’s a sight Clickenger has seen almost daily since November, when she decided to participate in the Read to the Final Four program.

The Star Tribune says the first “rounds” began last fall with 275 schools from across Minnesota participating. Those schools received access to an online platform called MyOn, which has 5,800 digital books across various reading levels. The program offers students and teachers a way to track time spent reading and students’ reading levels. As the competition continued, the schools spending the most time reading emerged as the leaders in March Madness-style brackets.

Through every round, Galtier prevailed to become one of the final four schools in the competition.

“We’re just the little school that could,” Hendrix said.

The Star Tribune report said the other three schools that made the final round were Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart in Buffalo Lake, Liberty Ridge Elementary in Woodbury and Scandia Elementary School in Scandia. Together, 252 third-grade students at the top four schools read for about 700,000 minutes. They read 31,000 books and 1.2 million pages. Students read an average of 11 hours per week.

Teachers, principals and students from those schools were invited to meet Gov. Tim Walz last month and were honored on the court during the Reese’s Final Four Friday at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“In my first year, I figured I’d try anything,” said Clickenger, adding: “I figured maybe we’d make it a few rounds but I never thought we’d make it to the final four.”

While the competitive aspect encouraged some students, advancing to the next round was never the primary focus, Clickenger said. “I honestly didn’t even know how the brackets worked at first,” she said.

Once the class found out that it had advanced to the “Elite Eight” round, Clickenger hosted a “Read In” and invited parents to join their children for a few hours of reading at the school on a Friday night. Community members and school board members came to see the voracious readers in action.

The overall engagement of both students and communities was the true barometer of success for the program, said Cordell Smith, the reading initiatives project manager for the Final Four local organizing committee.

Smith said he lost count of the number of stories he heard about children who discovered a newfound love for reading through the program.

The online reading platform wasn’t designed to address any reading challenge but simply offered teachers another vehicle to get kids engaged in books, Smith said.

“We want them to carry this and continue to enjoy reading long after the Final Four has left Minneapolis,” he said.