December 10, 2004
| All those missed television shows were well worth it. Spending a majority of their free time poring over sentence after sentence has been rewarded. Being dedicated to the Berenstain Bears and the Hardy Boys will definitely pay-off. For Bryan and College Station elementary students, the chance to witness an Antoine Wright dunk, a Joseph Jones block and a Texas A&M men's basketball game has made 200 pages of reading worth every single word. The hard work is over. Through the Aggie Dream Team program 1,272 of the area's kindergarten through third grade students have received two complimentary men's basketball tickets and will reap the rewards of their persistence at Saturday's game against Alabama A&M. "I am very pleased with how this program has gone so far," said men's basketball marketing assistant Rochelle Villafranca. "I will be excited to see these kids' faces at the game this Saturday." The Aggie basketball game could be a sight for sore eyes-literally. These students have committed countless hours to reach their 200-page reading goal. "Our kids have just loved it," South Knoll Elementary librarian Rhonda Walker said. "It's a wonderful opportunity for them to get to go see the Aggies play. They have been really excited and it has no doubt increased their reading." The program kicked off two months ago when junior Antoine Wright and sophomore Acie Law read to classes at both a Bryan and College Station elementary school. Since then, area students have been devouring book upon book, filling out their reading logs, and striving toward those free tickets.
"[The Dream Team program] does increase their desire to read," Neal Elementary librarian Dana Yezak said. "That extra incentive pushed them harder and made them focus on how many pages they were reading, because normally they just read the book and take the [accelerated reader] test. This helped them get something out of it right away." According to librarians, a majority of students were able to get more from the program than just the free hoops tickets. It produced an amplified desire to read-so much that some entire elementary classes were successful in reaching their goals. "In most classes, everybody in the class reached their goal," Walker said. "It has been great." Now that the lower-level elementary students have completed the program, fourth through sixth graders are beginning to read their way toward a 400-page goal that would earn them two tickets to the Baylor game on Jan. 29. "I hope the younger students' success will motivate the 4th and 5th graders," Fannin Elementary librarian Aimee Duron said. "It has been a really good incentive program for all the students to come in, get some books, and read." In addition to the free tickets for students who reached their individual goals, the Dream Team Program offered each school a "group incentive" for amassing the highest cumulative page totals. Four schools, two from each Bryan and College Station, were recently informed of their victory. "We were one of the top two schools [in Bryan] so we actually get to have the basketball team come read to our school after Christmas," Fannin Elementary librarian Aimee Duron said. "The kids are really excited about going to the game but when they heard we were going to get the basketball team to come and read, they got even more excited." The schools, South Knoll and Pebble Creek in College Station and Neal and Fannin in Bryan, will each be visited by one of four Aggie basketball players in January. The Aggie Dream Team participating students will have the chance to read with the "big boys." "They are thrilled about it," Yezak said. "We are always trying to push our kids to do the best so this was another opportunity to do that. We are going to have all the kids that participated in the program get to listen to that basketball player read. It will be a bright spot for us when we come back from Christmas vacation." Those visits may be a late Christmas present for students from the winning schools. But this Saturday all of the 1,272 "All-Stars" have the opportunity to receive an early Christmas gift packaged in Aggie dribbling, dunks, and defense. "They are excited about the basketball game because a lot of our kids don't get to go and do things like that," Yezak said. "Basketball is a big sport for them here. We had 194 qualify, and probably about 100 of those will be going. We are bringing two full buses right now." It seems Santa has taken note of all that hard work the past few months. |
