Greetings Vanderlyn 4th and 5th graders!

If you enjoy reading and competition, consider joining Vanderlyn's Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl after school club. The Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl (HRRB) is a fun, quiz-bowl type competition. At the Bowl, students strive to "buzz" in and correctly answer questions about the current year's elementary Georgia Children's Book Award nominees faster than the opposing teams. 

This is face-to-face after school club for 4th and 5th graders. The club will meet after school one day a week in the Vanderlyn Library from 2:35 to 3:15. Members will read and discuss the nominee books. In October (date to be determined), students will take a test on the three tryout books (listed below) and up to ten reading bowl club members will be selected to represent our school at the HRRB competition. The competition is usually scheduled on a Saturday in January and is held at a DeKalb County High School. Team members will be announced after the tryouts. Team members are expected to attend practices from Oct.-Jan.  

Students need to write a total of 15 questions (with answers and page numbers) or write a summary/outline of the book. The questions can all be from one of the books or spread across two or all three.  Expectations will be shared the team's first practice. 

Here is an example of the question format:

In the book, A Rover's Story, what is the name of the rover that is going to Mars? Resilience (Res for short), p. 49. 

The January competition will consist of 4 to 6 rounds. Competition rounds will be assigned to team members based upon behaviors exhibited at the meetings and discussions and the number of books read. All ten team members will compete during the January competition, but not all members will compete in the same number of rounds. 

 To be in the club...

1. Click on the Reading Bowl Interest Survey to let us know you want to try out.

2. Start checking out and reading the nominee books (1. A Rover's Story by Jasmine Warga, 2. Frizzy, a graphic novel by Claribel A. Ortega, 3. The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle by Taryn Souders). The public library owns multiple copies of each and the school library has 3-5 copies of each. Students interested in trying out are permitted to check out one book over the summer. Stop by the library or reach out to Mrs. Pansini at the email address listed below to check one out. You can also check them out from the Sora eBook platform: https://bit.ly/dekalbsora  

Cosponsors of the club are Dr. Adderley, Mrs. Dempsey and Mrs. Pansini. We are trying to encourage students to read a variety of books AND be a competitive team at the same time! Thank you for joining us.

We look forward to seeing you at

a Reading Bowl Club meeting!

**Have questions?

Please email Mrs. Pansini, Vanderlyn librarian: gail_pansini@dekalbschoolsga.org