Students at Wiscasset Middle School took part in a nationwide effort to “Read the Most Coast to Coast” on February 28. Students participated in Renaissance Learning’s challenge to break the record set last school year for the number of Accelerated Reader Quizzes taken in one day. The new one-day record is an amazing 4,987,949 quizzes!

Accelerated Reader, the nation’s most widely used reading management program for K-12 schools, helps educators generate excitement for reading and monitor students’ personalized practice. Accelerated Reader serves as a platform for teachers to manage independent reading practice. Students read a book at the appropriate level and then take a computer-based quiz to show they understood what they’ve read. Accelerated Reader provides access to 160,000 quizzes, nearly half for nonfiction books.

Students in grades 5-8 took part in this shared effort as part of Winter Carnival that was rescheduled to the “Read the Most Coast to Coast” event on Friday, Feb. 28 due to the snow day on February 14. The Wiscasset Middle School staff quickly took advantage of the Carnival atmosphere to celebrate reading. Students came to the Middle School Library and took reading comprehension quizzes using the Accelerated Reader program app on 10 library iPads. Wiscasset Middle School student’s efforts helped to shatter the previous record of 4,409,622 quizzes taken.

“Read the Most Coast to Coast is a fun-filled event that enables our students to join with others across the nation to set a new record, all while engaging in valuable reading practice,” said Molly Carlson, Library Ed Tech. “We are proud of our students.

“They were so excited to contribute to the national quiz count and to be part of a reading effort that spanned the nation.”