TUPELO — The Lee County District Reading Fair will be held at the Lee County Library on Saturday, March 29, for grades 6 through 8, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Reading Fair for K-5 students was held last Saturday, March 22. All first-place winners from local schools, as well as homeschool students, will compete for the district-level win.
First organized by the Mississippi Department of Education in 1988, the Reading Fair was designed to promote literacy skills, develop presentation abilities and foster a love of reading in students.
District-level competition, however, has been on hold since the COVID-19 pandemic. The last time that the full Reading Fair was held with all four levels of competition—school, district, regional, and state—was six years ago in 2019. Although many local schools have continued to host their own school-level competitions since the pandemic, students did not have an opportunity to progress on to higher levels during that time.
This year, in collaboration with the Tupelo Public School District, the Lee County Library is bringing district-level competition back, organizing a district competition so that all first-place winners from local schools have the opportunity to compete again in the second level of competition. Local homeschool students are also eligible to participate, and the library is looking forward to a busy competition, highlighting the work and passion of local students.
“I am very excited to offer this district competition to our students,” said Grace Guntharp, Youth Services Manager at the Lee County Library. “We love any opportunity to promote reading, so I am glad we were able to work with the schools to get this organized, and to be able to include our homeschool community as well.”
Philip Shackelford, the library system’s executive director, agreed.
“We are honored to have such a central role in bringing this exciting event back to our local community,” he said, “and our Youth Services team has done a great job bringing all the pieces together. It is going to be a fantastic competition!”
For her part, Guntharp has enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with the Reading Fair experience. “I used to participate in the Reading Fair when I was a student,” she said, “and I was sad to learn that it hasn’t been brought back officially since the pandemic. I have a lot of great memories of meeting kids from other schools and counties and making friends during the competitions!”
If all goes well, there could be a very bright future for the Reading Fair at the Lee County Library. “We are hoping to make this an annual event if we get enough interest in it,” Guntharp pointed out, “and have even more schools participate next year!”
“It is always a special moment when we are able to invest in the next generation of readers and library lovers,” Shackelford agreed. “The Lee County District Reading Fair is a perfect opportunity to do just that!”
Read the full article here
