More News

Third-graders attempt to read their way into world record

nPupils from Rockledge Elementary try to get into Guinness Book of Records

Thursday, Dec. 28, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Raphael Talisman⁄The gazette-Star Rockledge Elementary School third-graders read a portion of Charlotte’s Web simultaneously out loud with over half a million other third-graders around the world in order to break the world record for most people reading the same passage at the same time on Dec. 13 at Rockledge Elementary School in Bowie.

The passage chosen for the feat was from the E.B. White novel “Charlotte’s Web“ and the Bowie event was held at Rockledge Elementary School.

In order to break the previous record, which was held by 155,528 students from 737 schools in the United Kingdom, Rockledge’s staff arranged for their pupils to read the passage at the same time as over 547,800 pupils from 2,451 locations around the world.

It was Rockledge’s third-grade teacher, Jessica Beamon’s, idea to involve the third-grade pupils in attempting to break the record.

“I had planned to have my class read “Charlotte’s Web“ during the school year and was surfing the Internet one night trying to find an activity involving the story they could do,“ Beamon said.

During her search, she came upon a Web site that said it was looking for schools to sign up to read the passage in order to break the world record.

In order to participate, the pupils had to get a permission slip signed by their parents, then fill out a form as proof that they participated in the reading.

District 1 police officers George Merkel and Chad Everett stopped by during the reading to serve as witnesses that the pupils were reading together.

“I decided to help out because my wife is a Rockledge teacher and my daughter is a fifth-grader here,“ Merkel said. “I was glad to help out.“

Merkel said that all the pupils appeared to be reading together and that he was pretty sure they would be successful.

“I just think anything that gets kids reading is great,“ Merkel said.

The passage that the pupils had to read aloud was from the part of the book where the main character, Wilbur the pig, is greeted by the title character, Charlotte the spider, and the two become friends.

Prior to that day, the students were not told which passage they would be reading aloud nor did they practice it before noon.

“It was kind of hard for us to all read at the same time because some people read really slow and some read really fast,“ third-grader Andrew Peter Valniasky said.

Third-grader Alessandra Caminiti said that the book’s theme is loneliness and friendship.

“None of the other farm animals would play with Wilbur because they didn’t like pigs,“ Caminiti said. “Charlotte was the first one of them to be nice to Wilbur.“

Beamon said that the book has allowed her to lead her class into discussions about morals and values, such as whether or not it’s right to eat animals.

Third-grader Paola Mejia said that she and her classmates have also been comparing differences between the book and the (cartoon) movie version.

“It’s a blessing that we’re reading this book and I feel like I’ve learned a lot,“ third-grader Travien Anderson said.

Beamon said that the Guinness Book of World Records will let her know whether the record was broken in the spring.

More information about the program is available at www.charlotteswebbarr.com⁄index.php or people can call Beamon at 301-805-2720.

E-mail Wendy McConnell at wmcconnell@gazette.net.