Students rack up 267,280 hours reading as part of literacy program

By Paul Takahashi

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 | 11:30 p.m.

When you add it up, it comes to 267,280 hours — or 11,137 days, or 30.5 years.

However you want to count it, that’s the staggering amount of combined time Henderson elementary school students have spent reading this year as part of the APPLE CORE program.

Started in 2004, Henderson’s All People Promoting Literacy Efforts program entices students to read more books after school. Reading times and books are tracked on special bookmarks provided by APPLE, and schools with the highest average number of hours read per student are awarded prize money.

In a packed auditorium at Dooley Elementary School, 1940 Chickasaw Drive, the winning schools were announced on Wednesday to thunderous applause from hundreds of students, parents, teachers and administrators.

This year, Dooley Elementary School received the first place prize of $7,000, with an average reading time per student of 68.5 hours. Vanderburg Elementary School came in second, winning $1,000 with 47.5 hours, and David Cox Elementary School came in third, winning $500 with 38.5 hours.

“I feel extremely proud,” Dooley Principal Nicole Lehman-Donadio said. “But it’s less about the contest and more about instilling a love of reading.”

Clark County School District Superintendent Dwight Jones, school board member Deanna

Wright and Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen congratulated the children, 15 of whom received prizes drawn from all of the reading bookmarks submitted.

Three students won a Barnes and Noble Nook, an e-reader that retails for $139. Those students are McCaw fifth-grader Timmy Maxon, Newton second-grader Jessika Stevens and Kesterson second-grader Brandon Elmore.

Another dozen students won a basket of books. They are: Robert Taylor first-grader Cheyenne Owen, Hinman second-grader Yadira Torres, McDoniel first-grader Malcolm McGruder, Kesterson second-grader Madison Cox, Twitchell third-grader Aeryl Jayme, McDoniel first-grader Lily Wang, Dooley fourth-grader Kristy Clarich, Nate Mack fourth-grader Hayley McNally, Smalley second-grader Norik Moresesyan, David Cox kindergartener Joey Ola, McCaw second-grader Hannah Daniels and Galloway third-grader Natalia Alvarado.

The prize money and gifts were donated by community partners such as Atkins, a Henderson-based civil engineering company. Atkin, formerly known as PBS & J, has donated more than $60,000 in prize money for the APPLE CORE program since its inception eight years ago.

“APPLE has been a great program,” Atkins Vice President Wayne Ohrlacher said. “We’ve seen how excited the kids are. It’s worth every penny of it.”

“We felt education is a key thing,” he said. “Within the engineering community, there are concerns that there’s not enough students who are selecting engineering as a profession, so anything to raise the profile of engineering is beneficial.”

APPLE executive board member Bud Cranor said the program has benefited students in ways from helping curb behavior problems to improving grades. The APPLE program was started as an education initiative by former Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson and the City Council.

“We wanted to see what we could do to help support education in a meaningful way,” Cranor said. “All the statistics, all the data that we saw supported the fact that if a child could read at grade level by third grade, then their chances for success in school and later in life went up dramatically.”

The APPLE Core reading program is one of several initiatives that encourage Henderson children to read. Celebration of Reading brought notable children’s authors such as R.L. Stine to talk with students and Safekey Partnership provides reading time for students in after-school programs.