Kern County students LOVE to read. How do we know that? Nearly 7000 admission tickets to the BARC Magical Forest tell us so.
BARC introduced its Magical Forest Reading Express program in 2008 as a way to encourage reading for fun. Students at participating schools who read 200 minutes for pleasure received one adult and one child admission to the Magical Forest. We distributed over 1400 tickets in 2008, which was pretty impressive for an initial effort we thought.
This year participation skyrocketed with 21 schools from 8 districts participating. Nearly 7000 admission tickets to the Magical Forest were distributed to the students and teachers who participated. What a testament to the great teachers we have in Kern County who are mentoring voracious and enthusiastic student readers in our elementary and middle schools. They should all be very proud of their accomplishment.
Not enough gets said about our educators and their dedication to broadening the horizons of our students. In the era of “teaching to the test” and the weight put on test scores that translates into necessary funding, it would be easy for teachers to not take on extra projects or recognize the importance to commit to new ideas that help with the task at hand, and the students are responding.
Not in Kern County. We have some of the finest educators on our campuses that do see the importance of opening the world of reading for pleasure to their students. A life long love of reading can be awakened with encouragement…and a little reward doesn’t hurt either.
Our heartfelt Thanks to all of the participating schools, students, teachers and parents who made this reading program successful, and Thank You for Your Support of BARC.
