FernFolio

The Get Caught Reading program was conceived to foster and celebrate reading among students at my school. Started in the Fall of 2003, the program encourages students to read, both at school and at home, and to record their reading in reading logs. For every ten picture storybooks, or one novel, students receive a Reading Ticket, which is entered in a weekly draw for three book prizes.
When a child reaches fifty picture storybooks, or ten novels, he or she is inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame. His or her photograph is added to the Hall of Fame board, and their accomplishment is celebrated during the morning announcements. Each time that child completes another fifty picture storybooks, or ten novels, they move to a new level in the Hall of Fame.
Members of the Reading Hall of Fame are invited to a year-end celebration at which they receive a certificate and are served treats.
This is an example of an initiative that started small, with modest goals, and which, like Topsy, “just growed”. I was fortunate that the Grade One teachers embraced the Get Caught Reading program from its inception, eager to make use of any available resource to encourage their beginning readers. In its first year, the program was also popular among my library assistants, who spread the word among their friends. I rapidly realized that I could not underwrite the costs of this program on my own. When my cache of freebie books became depleted, I approached the School Council and was fortunate to receive about $100 per month to purchase book prizes. At the end of that first year, 49 students had been inducted into the Reading Hall of Fame. Successful, but only moderately so. I contemplated ending the program until one teacher commented that she believed one of her students, a child with intellectual delays, had persevered in learning to read in part because of the Get Caught Reading program. I decided that success with even one child made it worth trying again.
The program took off during the second year. To my surprise, I discovered that students entering Grade One knew all about the Get Caught Reading program, and were eager to see their photos on the board outside the library door. Soon there was a promise of a special treat for the first class whose students were all members of the Reading Hall of Fame. A Grade One class enjoyed ice cream sundaes in the Library in late January of 2005.
I learned to draw names in advance of the Friday prize announcement, and began to make monthly trips to S&B to buy books with specific prize winners in mind. It became apparent early in the second year that levels beyond the Green entry level were needed. So Red, Blue, Silver and Gold were created, each representing an additional fifty picture storybooks or ten novels. In the Spring of 2005, eighteen months after the Get Caught Reading program had started, I was asked to visit the preschool daycare room to see something. The two and three and four year-olds had transformed the house centre into a library and had posed pictures of Reading Hall of Famers on a sheet of construction paper next to the entrance. We ended the second year with 103 members in the Reading Hall of Fame.
The third year presented new challenges. I lost School Council funding because there was simply no money. Fortunately, a parent approach me and offered to underwrite the costs because she believed in the ability of the Get Caught Reading program to foster reading among children. Students, particularly, those in the primary grades, took this program to heart and read and read and read. As they attained new reading levels, I had to invent new names for those levels. It became a pastime at the school to swing by the library to see the new papers on which photos were mounted. The sheer volume of books and readers meant that I had to create new and better tracking sheets, and streamline some of the picture-taking and mounting protocols.
In the past four years, the Parent Council has generously underwritten the Get Caught Reading Program, and has further supported library initiatives by holding a fundraising evening at the local Chapters, and by working tirelessly at our annual book fairs. I am very grateful for their time and encouragement.
Over time, I have begun to encourage teachers to modify the guidelines for the Get Caught Reading program to meet the particular needs of each student. Sometimes, one chapter has counted as a novel. At others, books read with a parent have been included. Of course, non-fiction texts and magazines and, increasingly, graphic novels and manga have been featured in the reading logs; students know that any reading goes, with the approval of their homeroom teacher.
I cannot begin to count the number of hours I have devoted to the Get Caught Reading program during the past seven years, but I still delight in seeing another primary child skip through the door waving their reading logs (while sometimes also cringing when I contemplate counting up the books read) or one of the increasingly frequent junior or intermediate students wander in to present me with a list of recently read novels. I treasure a reading log written on a paper bag, submitted by a Grade 4 students, and the comment, by one Grade 7 girl, that I can really sell books and reading, and a Valentine, from a Grade One boy who wanted to be sure I knew that he loves books.
As I begin an eighth year of Get Caught Reading, there are challenges that remain. The first is to make the program more relevant to students in the intermediate grades. Many of the strong readers in Grades 7 and 8 are frequent visitors to the library, taking part in Intermediate Book Club and eagerly engaging in discussion with me and their peers about their reading, however they are not always interested in reading logs and tickets or weekly reading prizes. These students do not trouble me. It is the students who chose not to read, or are too busy to read – the unmotivated, the uncommitted and the dormant readers – who occupy my mind. Once again this year, I will try to encourage teachers to bring their intermediate classes for bi-weekly visits, something that has taken off with a majority of junior classes. These 20- to 30-minute periods will centre on book talks, book discussions, quick lessons about ICT, etc. I am hoping that reluctant readers will be encouraged to try out some of the books they hear about.
The second issue remains keeping on top of  the paperwork and other managerial tasks involved with the program. As the Get Caught Reading program grows, there were more than 150 readers in last year’s Reading Hall of Fame, it has become increasingly difficult and time-consuming to keep track of readers’ progress. The reading dragons, a feature of the program during its first years, have gone, but, with any luck, the readers will keep on coming.
FernFolio Editor
Get Caught Reading is used by permission.
Updated Fall 2009