Fifth-grade students at Roundy and Sewell elementary schools are in for a fast ride this school year. H-Town Racing, a local team that races at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, is sponsoring the Race to Success Reading Program for those two institutions and hopes to add a third school to the mix soon.
H-Town Racing owner and driver Jim Petrie created the program to encourage fifth-grade students to read more because he feels that is a critical time in a child's education -- the year before they head off to middle school. As part of his commitment, the racer visits each school once a month and doles out prizes for those who have met their reading goals of five, 15 or 25 books throughout the school year.
At a recent visit to Roundy, Petrie handed out official race team baseball caps, sets of state quarters and certificates for those who hit the first goal of five books. To qualify as a book for the program, the reading material has to be at least 100 pages at Roundy, and the students have to complete a short report on the book after finishing to verify they have read it.
During his visit, Petrie also passed around his racing helmets and read "Green Eggs and Ham" to his young fans. By incorporating the race theme throughout the reading program, Petrie felt that he could encourage kids to read more by combining it with something they thought was exciting.
"The race cars peaked the kids' interest so much, I thought we could parlay that into something else," Petrie said.
"They're going to the library during recess, and when they finish their in-class work, they automatically take out their book," said Becky Molloy, fifth-grade teacher at Roundy.
Molloy's class had nine students who hit the goal of five books, with many others right behind. Some of the books her kids were reading include "Captain Underpants" and "The Year of the Dog." Petrie also asked a few of the students to give him a summary of what they read during his visit.
"They look forward to it," Molloy said. "They ask, 'Is he coming, is he coming?' "
"I think it's awesome," said Madison Raymond, one of Molloy's students. "Reading's fun and we get prizes for doing it."
"I really love it," said David Stuflick, fifth-grade teacher at Sewell. "We were chosen by him and that really made it special for us. We felt kind of lucky."
Throughout the entire program, H-Town Racing will donate race T-shirts, diecast cars, decals and other prizes to students, and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway has donated about 5,000 race tickets for the students' use.
"We get rewarded for doing what we love," said Jocelyn Monjaras, one of Molloy's fifth-graders.
In addition to student goals, class reading goals are set at 500 books. Any group that meets that mark will receive a pizza party complete with real race cars on display and plenty of door prizes to go around, Petrie said.
To be eligible for the contest, a book has to be 200 pages in length or longer at Sewell, Stuflick said.
"We didn't want it to be competitive because we wanted to reward every kid," Petrie said. "That's the whole point of it -- to get the kids who don't read to read."
To further support his program and maintain the kids' excitement, Petrie placed both Roundy and Sewell's school logos on his race cars.
"It ties the kids to the cars as part of the team," Petrie said.
Stuflick said he admires Petrie's reading program because the racer puts in the work so the teachers don't have to.
"This guy is always out here doing for us instead of just sending us stuff," Stuflick said. "He's kind of taking the lead. He's really special."
Nevada State Bank is H-Town Racing's biggest financial supporter, so most of the stuff has the bank's name or logo on it.
At the end of the program in May, each partner school will receive a $500 donation from H-Town Racing to be used for that institution's library. Petrie hopes to continue this program each year from now on and wants to add more schools every academic year.
"This ain't just a one-year, flash-in-the-pants thing," he said. "Our goal is in 10 years' time to be in every school in the Vegas Valley."
Petrie said this program won't be successful without the support of the students' parents, so he encourages them to get involved and interested in their children's reading habits.
For more information on the program, visit www.htownspeed.com.
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