Students participate in BOOK IT at Bainbridge Elementary

Twenty-nine second grade students at Bainbridge Elementary were treated to a pizza party with all the trimmings recently for reaching their reading goal in the BOOK IT project.

Twenty-nine second grade students at Bainbridge Elementary were treated to a pizza party with all the trimmings last week.

All five-second-grade classes participate in Pizza Hut's BOOK IT program. The idea is to read for six months and reach goal every month to get a personal pan pizza certificate and medal at end of year.

Bainbridge second grade teachers Shannon Kincaid, Vicki Sanders, Laurie Hensley, Jeanine Peterson and Lisa Asher recognized their students' hard work with a pizza party with all the trimmings (drinks, snacks and dessert).

"This is quite a feat for these kids. Kids were working hard but penalized by not having the whole class attain goal, so teachers started giving them a pizza party to show how hard they worked," said Peterson.

BOOK IT is designed to motivate children to read by rewarding their accomplishments with praise, recognition and pizza. Goals of the program are set to match reading ability.

The program starts October 1 and ends March 31 of each school year and is available to grades kindergarten to six.

Each teacher sets a monthly reading goal for each child in the class. As soon as the monthly reading goal has been met, the teacher presents the child with a Reading Award Certificate.

The student takes the certificate to a Pizza Hut restaurant, where he or she is congratulated by the manager or service team and given a free, one-topping personal pan pizza.

On the first visit, the child also receives a BOOK IT! card with clip and a sticker for the card. There is no purchase necessary and the pizza can be ordered to go.

On each subsequent visit, the child is again congratulated and given another personal pan pizza and a sticker to recognize reading achievement.

If the student meets the reading goals all six months of the program, he or she is awarded a BOOK IT All-Star Reader Award at Pizza Hut.

Bainbridge students will be recognized at the end of the year during their awards program.

Students who have earned the BOOK IT award at Bainbridge Elementary are:

Shannon Kinkead's Class -- Bella Zarate, Meagan Crowder, Chloe Gabbard and Dylan Kenworthy;

Vicki. Sanders' Class -- Will Rhoden, Nick Augusta, Josh Propes, Markeese Burks and Sabrina Toth;

Laurie Hensley's Class -- Chloey Barnett, Alexis Benge, Emma Blanford, Evan Davies, Emma Grimes, Zachary Koll, Shelby Mason, Shalyn Nelson, Jake Nevitt , Ryan Spurr and Kolten Thorson;

Jeanine Peterson's Class -- Luke Sanford, Briggs Porter, Marcus Greenberg, Jonathan Poynter, Mason Allen, Jessica Farmer and T.J. Smith;

Lisa Asher's Class -- Jordan Adam, Zac Collins and Logan Wentz.