Education advocacy organization Tennesseans for Student Success (TSS) is offering a fun way to encourage your children to pick up a book this summer.¶
The organization’s annual Tristar Reads competition officially kicked off today. The contest rewards Tennessee students who spend the most minutes reading this summer in the categories below with a $1,000 scholarship.¶
- One overall winner
- One elementary school student (K-4)
- One middle school student (5-8)
- One high school student (9-12)
The Tennessee Firefly is a project of and supported by TSS.¶
Why Read?
Reading builds language skills, general knowledge that helps children learn in school, and develops empathy and emotional regulation, according to research by the Child Mind Institute. The importance of reading is also important during the summer, when many children lose academic progress made during the school year, frequently called the “summer slide.”¶
“Tennessee students thrive when they have opportunities to continue learning beyond the classroom, and summer reading is one of the best ways to help prevent the ‘summer slide’ that causes students to lose critical academic progress while school is out,” TSS President and CEO Lana Skelo said. “Studies show that students who skip reading during the summer can lose months of learning, and those setbacks can build year after year. Tristar Reads encourages students to stay engaged, strengthen their reading comprehension skills, and return to the classroom confident and ready for success in the year ahead.”¶
Last year’s Overall Winner logged nearly 33,000 minutes reading in the contest. Delia Sigler said reading provides her with an escape and allows her to flex her creative muscles.¶
“I really like getting to see the different worlds and the different characters, and seeing kind of how they interact with each other, and getting kind of like immersed into the world, and just seeing the stories,” Sigler said.¶
How To Compete
Children wanting to compete must register online. They must keep track of all the hours they spend reading through August 3, as well as a list of all the books they read.¶
Previous winners will be ineligible to compete in the category they won in.¶
