Yesterday, students across Georgia participated in the East Regional Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl!
The Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl is an annual state-wide reading competition with the goal of encouraging students to read. Students grades 4-12 are expected to read a set number of books, compete for spots on their school’s team, and then after much practice, participate in local, regional, and statewide competitions. Yesterday’s event featured the third round of this competition, the regional competitions, in which the winners from each of Georgia’s six regions advanced to the State Reading Bowl final.
The Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl was created by the competition’s namesake in 1986. Helen Ruffin was an innovative Library Media Specialist at Sky Haven Elementary School in DeKalb County when she decided to create a unique reading competition for her students. Named The Reading Bowl, it employed a competitive game format to quiz students on the content of the 20 Georgia Book Award Nominees annually. Her vision was to create teams, consisting of students from various schools, engaging in friendly competition to assess their knowledge of the chosen books.
In 2000, following Ruffin’s retirement, a group of Library Media Specialists established the DeKalb County Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl, and, as news of this distinctive reading initiative spread, other school districts in Georgia expressed interest in joining the competition. In the 2003-2004 academic year, the Georgia Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl (HRRB) Steering Committee was formed, consisting of members from The Georgia Association of Educators and the Georgia Library Media Association.
Over the past few years, more than 600 schools across Georgia have conducted local competitions within their school districts and have registered online for regional competitions.
Recently, for the 2024 season, local Atlanta schools competed at the Metrowide Region competition, which was held on…
Read the full article here