Howard Elementary students win Reading Super Bowl | Centre Daily Times

Howard Elementary School has something else for which to show pride.

On Monday, students participated in the Howard Olympics to celebrate its win for the ninth annual Reading Super Bowl.

Students from kindergarten to fifth grade were split into four teams with teachers to compete in several indoor events that included a hoop shoot, relay races, the crab walk, and tug of war.

The Reading Super Bowl was started by former Bald Eagle Area School District Superintendent Dan Fisher, who wanted to improve literacy for students in the direct, and encouraged the campaign with a competition among the district’s four elementary schools.

The schools competed in two categories: comprehension percentage and number of points accumulated.

“The goal is to improve comprehension, therefore weighing comprehension more than points for passing the quiz,” said Howard Principal Skip Pighetti. “Through the month of January, leading up to the actual Super Bowl, each elementary (school) would compete against each other scoring points in the categories. “

Howard was undefeated in the comprehension category, and accumulated 13 total points — one point ahead of Mountaintop Area Elementary School in Snow Shoe, and two points ahead of Port Matilda Elementary School. Wingate Elementary School accumulated six points.

“Here at Howard, we focused on getting 100 percent on quizzes,” Pighetti said. “To do this, I created the Principal 100 Percent Club, and gave a reward to the students daily. It was very awesome to see because students would come up to me and tell me they got a 100 percent on their reading counts quiz.”

In January, Bald Eagle Area elementary school students read a total of 7,444 books; 17,134,142 words; and averaged a score of 86 percent on each quiz, Pighetti said.