Reading Competition Team

The Laurel Highlands Middle School has been part of the Fayette County Interscholastic Reading Competition since it inception.  In 2003, our librarian Mrs. C. Vernon met with several middle school librarians including Uniontown Area, Albert Gallatin and the librarians from the Uniontown Public library.  Our goal was to create a reading competition that would introduce our students to many award winning books including both fiction and nonfiction selections. The competition is supported and run with immense help from The Friends of the Library who give their time to select and read the required books and monitor the competition every May.

Originally students who volunteered to be a part of the team signed up in September of each year. All students were welcomed to the team and would continue on the team as long as they continued to read the pre-selected books. The LH teams were composed of sixth through eighth grade students.  Each student was required to read at least 7 books to make the final teams and were expected to read as many of the 20 books as possible to support our efforts to win first place. Our students met several times throughout the year to discuss the books and quiz each other for the upcoming competition.  In May the teams with Mrs. Vernon jumped on the school bus for the short drive first to the Uniontown public library but then to St John school when the competition attracted many more districts and multiple teams.  This year the competition is sponsored by Mrs J. Tupta with the support of Mrs. Vernon.  The team selection process has been changed this year to a class composed of eighth graders who will read during the class and take the books home to finish. Discussions and practice sessions will be part of the class.  Students who show an interest in participating but who are not in the scheduled class will also be allowed to prepare by checking out books from Mrs Tupta's classroom.