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Hamilton County: Read 20 celebrates student progress

By: Yolanda Putman
(Contact)

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Shawn Kurrelmeier-Lee

Read 20 officials are visiting 46 Hamilton County elementary schools before the end of the school year to give students “star reader” certificates for reading on their grade levels and to donate books to the schools in their honor.

Even students who read below grade level got ”rising star” certificates of encouragement, officials said.

“If you only reward the valedictorian, you only get a few who target that as a goal,” said Shawn Kurrelmeier-Lee, Read 20’s chief reading officer. “But if you reward the best reader on the basketball team, on the football team, the best reader in chorus, then everybody is going for that best reader, and that was the idea.”

Mrs. Kurrelmeier-Lee gave certificates and books to students at East Ridge and McBrien elementary schools Friday. She has only a few more schools to visit before she recognizes all elementary schools in Hamilton County for their efforts to encourage reading.

Read 20 is a public-private partnership that encourages people to read at least 20 minutes a day. The initiative also encourages parents to read to their infant children at least 20 minutes a day, officials said.

Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey established Read 20 in 2005 in hopes of helping at least 95 percent of all Hamilton County students read on grade level by the end of the third grade in the 2010 school year.

Nearly 90 percent of the county’s students read at their grade level in 2007, officials said.

Mike Dunne, external communications manager for Mr. Ramsey, also visited the schools to encourage students.

“It’s important to recognize the children’s efforts to become better readers,” he said. “Reading is crucial for development as a person.”

Sharon Watts, principal at East Ridge Elementary, said the visits are a way to recognize what students have done all year.

“(Read 20) encourages children to read, and it makes books available to them,” Ms. Watts said.