Spring Branch ISD Featured News

Read. Possibly win a weekly prize bag. Qualify for a grand prize. What could be better to make summer reading more exciting?

Just before school starts on August 16, there will be three grand prize drawings from among students at various grade levels who log at least 1,000 minutes of reading in the Spring Branch ISD Summer Reading Challenge

The grand prizes, donated by the Spring Branch Education Foundation, are:

• Elementary school students: Dash & Dot Coding Robot

• Middle school students: Nintendo Switch

• High school students: Oculus Quest 2

In addition, for each week of the challenge, students who log in reading minutes in their Beanstack accounts will be entered into a random drawing for one of three prize bags filled with tee-shirts, games, pens and pencils.

To date, 19 SBISD students have logged more than 1,000 minutes in the Summer Reading Challenge this summer into their Beanstack dashboard, accessible through the students’ Clever (digital learning platform) accounts. 

One of the top readers in the Summer Reading Challenge is the child of two Spring Branch ISD teachers, Sara and Shane Russo, who work at Stratford and Spring Woods High Schools, respectively. Both know the importance of literacy to the academic growth of students. Their daughter, Anaiya, will be a third grader at Sherwood Elementary this school year and is an avid reader.

“All of us read at least 30 minutes to an hour a day,” Ms. Russo said. “It is good for us to decompress from screen time.”

Russo is very thankful to the district librarians and fantastic teachers at Sherwood Elementary who have recommended books to her daughter and encouraged her to read chapter books since first grade.

Anaiya has logged more than 1,000 minutes in Beanstack this summer, and currently favors stories about Greek mythology told through graphic novels.

Her curiosity about Greek mythology began after she read some books from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and “wondered where all this stuff came from.”

She likes to read on the couch in the living room, with her dog Athena by her side. “The Amulet series of books are my favorite this summer,” Anaiya said.

This Sherwood Elementary student is looking forward to reading at advanced levels when she starts third grade soon, and to “learn about all different subjects.” According to her mom, Anaiya’s Limitless Curiosity helps her brain make connections across many different topics. 

“She takes one thing and turns it into a million other things,” Russo said.

Your child can qualify for prizes in the Summer Reading Challenge

It is not too late for students at all grade levels to get involved in the Spring Branch ISD Summer Reading Challenge (now through August 13). Instructions for getting started are here. Who knows where your reading will take YOU?!