How I ran my Readers Cup Competition

Please add your personal experiences in the comments section below

The Singapore Readers Cup is an

initiative of the

International School Libraries Network (ISLN) in Singapore.

Barbara Philip

In 2009 (the first year we held a Readers Cup) it went quite smoothly as we did it as a specialist CCA. Even though children didn't attend as much as they should, it was a small group and I could put them into multi-age group teams to ensure all the books were covered.

In 2010 we did it as a house activity. It was a nightmare because I had about 300 participants and little help. I put them into teams ten minutes before the competition to ensure each team had covered the range of books. Every meeting I had I saw different children and I couldn't even do practice runs because the children would dribble in and out of lunchtime meetings.

Both years we had the junior & middle division competition simultaneously and I asked alternate questions to keep it going at a decent pace.

In 2011 I want it to be friendship groups (I believe that children discuss books with their friends and so they will be quizzing each other in a natural way) which means being contained within year groups. I am opening it to the whole school (800 students) and anticipate that i will have lots of Y3&4s in particular wanting to participate.

I have a real problem (or not) that my Year 3s all want to be in it, but they are essentially picture book readers. I thought of having different books entirely for them, but this would make it almost impossible for them to compete in the National event.

Three of the books chosen are probably beyond most of the Year Threes

Dying to Meet You, Mr. Stink, Madame Pamplemousse.

Similarly, Nation & Leviathan in the middle group will be tough reads for Year 5

I think what I will do is this:

I am holding the competition at two different assemblies.

In the Y3 & Y4 assembly I will use all the junior books but have a Y3 & Y4 winning team. I will then have a quickfire competition in a lunch break to choose two representatives from each team to make up the 6 members of the National team. The other 3 0r 4 from the teams will become reserves and supporters.

In the Y5 & Y6 assembly I will have Y5 competing in both junior & middle divisions so once again I will need to ask simultaneous questions. Some Y5 teams may try to compete in both divisions, although I will advise against this. There will then be a winning Y5 junior team (2 members chosen at a playoff) that will join the Y3 & Y4 and a winning Y5 & Y6 team in the middle division that play off to have 3 members from each year group in the National Team.

Kate Stanley

During Book Week I ran the Battle of the Books competition by allocating two novels per year level (6, 7 and 8) then whipping up some basic '5W' type questions.

We have around 10 homebases per year level, so within each 'homebase' (approximately 24+ kids per homebase) , kids organised themselves into a little 'Team' and then read the two novels allocated for their year level.

I had bought around 10 of each title - but not 'Word Nerd' -due to the language and we didn't use 'Where the Mountain Meets the Moon' - although I have copies for general borrowing.

The students met with me sporadically at morning break or 5 minutes at a lunchtime for general pep talks and reminders to keep them on track and then they rocked up on the day for their year level competition and sat in groups to answer the questions. Tamara had made a super 'Jeopardy' styled game which really got their attention... and it was a bit of fun for them. The teams had buzzers as well for the 'fun factor'..

Katie Day

This is what I did last year:

I advertised an after-school activity for Readers Cup, where kids were coming to the library one day a week after school for over a month before the actual competition. My goal was two teams of 6-12 members (six official plus alternates). About 23 kids signed up.

At the first session, everyone filled out a questionnaire indicating how many of the short-listed titles they had read in each category. Those who hadn't read books were issued copies.

I showed the kids the sample questions and encouraged them to add more to some Google Docs (which everyone could edit) -- one per book.

During our sessions, the kids would then either read or re-read the books, think of questions, and quiz each other in pairs.

Closer to the time, I began the process of choosing the two teams. Regular quizzes, both paper and verbal, were administered and the decision of who to include was based on a number of factors: balancing grade levels and gender.

I also sent home permission forms for the kids to bring back, as I intended to take all the students to the competition. That eliminated some children as they weren't free on that afternoon.

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Linda Twitchett

Working only with Year 6, who had been active Red Dot Readers, students were invited to a lunchtime Readers Cup meeting. There were advised before the meeting to form teams, and that they could sign up without a team too.

In our meeting, teams were registered, a team leader nominated, and a set of books assigned, one to each member of the group. The team leader was to facilitate book sharing.

We held weekly meetings in the library, like we did for Red dot Readers, to track progress, rotate books and keep the momentum going.

We held an AISS Middle School Readers Cup, with all Year 6 as audience. I included audience questions. Our winning team went on to compete in the National finals.

My Senior team was elected unopposed! My Senior book club Red dot Readers formed one Senior Readers Cup team. and won!!