Blue ribbons won at Philadelphia Reading Olympics

Both elementary and middle school teams from PA Cyber brought home blue ribbons in the annual Reading Olympics event, competing against teams from Philadelphia brick and mortar schools.

PA Cyber’s Elementary team: (L-R) Sarasvati Buchta, Titus Primeaux, Yassin Moussa, Samuel Primeaux, Brent Carey, Amina Moussa, Olivia Hiester

PA Cyber’s Middle School team: (L-R) Amina Moussa, Susanna Larson, Samuel Primeaux, Netanya Brittain, Destiny Davis, Brent Carey, Titus Primeaux

 PHILADELPHIA - PA Cyber students at the Eastern Support Center represented their school well again this year at The 2012 Philadelphia Reading Olympics event. Competing among teams at St. Joseph’s University, the Middle School “Cyber Sting Rays” took home first place place blue ribbons on May 7. The Elementary team, “The Ghost Readers,” won blue ribbons in competition May 9.

Teams of up to 12 students collectively read the books on the Philadelphia Reading Olympics book list and practiced working together as a team to answer comprehension questions about those books.

Team coaches this year were Barbara Gaines, Jessica Campbell, Vanessa Royce, and Christina Hayes.

 “The students collectively read a total of 35 books since January in preparation for this competition, and all of their hard work paid off.  We are very proud of them,” said Hayes.

Both teams competed against  three schools (three rounds, a different school each round). Teams had only 15 seconds to answer each comprehension question.

Elementary team student captains were Titus Primeaux, Amina Moussa and Sarasvati Buchta. Netanya Brittain captained all three rounds for the middle school team. 

The intermediate list of 20 books included titles such as “The Homework Machine,” “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” “A Wrinkle in Time.” The middle school list of 15 books included “Rapunzel’s Revenge,” “Heir Apparent,” and “Claudette Colvin Twice Toward Justice.”

Hayes said favorite books of team members this year included “Amulet,” “Winter’s Tail,” “The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester,” “Zita the Spacegirl,” and “Firegirl.”

All teams were rewarded with their blue ribbons, participation medal and certificates, and were treated afterward to a pizza party.

Philadelphia Reading Olympics is a city-wide collaborative reading competition coordinated by the Philadelphia Reads organization, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the School District of Philadelphia, and the City of Philadelphia.

The Reading Olympics engages fourth through eighth graders from Philadelphia’s public, parochial, charter, independent and after school programs in a reading competition.

Teams come together in May at an assigned college campus location to answer questions about the books. The teams accumulate points for every correct answer during three rounds of competition, earning each team member a blue, red, or green ribbon based on the number of points their team has earned. Volunteers from area businesses join with members of the community to ask questions and keep score.