D146's Fierke Education Center Students Celebrate Reader's Choice Awards

Students at the Fierke Education Center in Oak Forest, IL, part of Community Consolidated School District 146, recently participated in the Monarch/Bluestem Awards Contest in Illinois, and were treated to a fun-filled rewards day in exchange for their hard work. 

Participating students sat quietly but anxiously in the gymnasium and watched the first ever live webcast announcement of the Illinois Student Choice Monarch and Bluestem Awards. The Monarch Award was greeted with a thunderous cheer from the students when the 2013 statewide winner of “Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes”, by Eric Litwin was announced. The crowd hushed momentarily for the 2nd announcement revealing the Illinois 2013 statewide winner for Bluestem was “Out of My Mind”, by Sharon Draper. (The Bluestem winner mirrored the same as the winner chosen at Fierke, for their own in-house version of the contest.)

After the webcast completed Mrs. Jennifer Ferrucci, Media Center Director at Fierke, called up two fourth grade students, Carissa and Katrina, to stand before the packed gymnasium.  She told the watchful students that the two girls were the only ones at Fierke to read all 20 Bluestem titles on their own. For their hard work they were each rewarded with a $20 Amazon gift card equating to one dollar for each book they read. 

Monarch books target readers from grades K-2, while the Bluestem focuses on the readers grades 3-5. Both Monarch and Bluestem each have 20 titles from which to choose. The students are required to read a minimum of six (6) books in order to participate in the voting for the winning title, but to attend the day’s festivities the student had to read a preset number based on the student’s grade level.

Monarch readers, they are mostly read to by their classroom teachers and Mrs. Jennifer Ferrucci due to their young age. Parents were also encouraged, as always, to read to their young student.  However, the Bluestem are independently read chapter books, so grades 3-5 were to read on their own. 

Mrs. Ferrucci said after the day’s events completed, “The awards do a lot to promote reading and literacy here at Fierke. It was fun to watch both the teachers and students all get involved in reading and enjoy the titles. Many of the nominated titles have won numerous other children's book awards and are high quality literature that allows children to practice their reading strategies while enjoying titles. It was also fun to see students recommend and discuss the titles on the lists to their peers.”

For more information on the Monarch and Bluestem Awards, as well as other Reader’s Choice Awards, please visit the Illinois School Library Media Association at http://www.islma.org.