VALDOSTA, GA – On Saturday, January 25, Valdosta City Schools will be hosting our 1st Annual Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl competition held at Valdosta High School, Performing Arts Center from 9:00-12:00. The contest is available to students in grades 4- 12 in teams or as individuals.

The Winner and Runner-Up for each level: elementary, middle, and high, will compete in the Regional competition the following Saturday at Valdosta State University. Students and teams who are advanced past local level will incur a $10.00 state registration fee and must be registered online prior to the state competition.

The Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl was founded by Helen Ruffin, a library media specialist from DeKalb County, Georgia. To inspire her students to read, Ruffin created a reading competition using the Georgia Book Award Nominees.The Reading Bowl challenges parents to teach their children the importance of reading and obtaining knowledge, as well as promotes to its participants that you can be rewarded for educating yourself through reading.

The Book list used for the Bowl is full of recent novels written about everyday troubles in a child’s life and how to deal with them. The books promote emotional stability, reading comprehension, cooperation, builds self-esteem and enriches their mind to explore common sense solutions to real life problems. The reading bowl consists of students from Georgia schools testing their knowledge of selected books in a statewide competition.

In the words of Helen Ruffin ” Students who Read are Students who Lead”

Source: Valdosta City Schools

Written By: Franchesca Griffin