NORWICH – Gibson Primary School will begin a new reading program for grades K-2 this year called the 100 Book Challenge. The program was started to encourage children to read both inside and outside of school, in hopes of fostering a love for reading.

“The most important thing to remember is it’s not about reading 100 books,” site coordinator Kisten Giglio said. The program encourages kids to read in 15-minute steps. “It could be called the 100 step challenge,” Giglio said, except that the program does not stop once you reach 100 steps. Giglio estimated that the students would reach between 400-500 steps this year, or 100-125 hours of reading.

“It is fast, fun, and easy reading,” Giglio said. The program works because it does not seem like a chore. The children read for 30 minutes at school and 30 minutes at home. They choose the books from a wide selection the school has to offer. Five thousand new books are coming in this year alone.

Giglio mentioned that one of the reasons this program works is because the students can read at their own level. Since every student is reading on their own, a wide range of books and reading levels are accommodated.

To ensure that the students are reading, a log book is used to keep track of what they are reading and when, and parents and other adults sign the book to verify that it is correct.