Encourage your kids to read, parents – it just might get them Carolina Hurricanes rewards

Reading can not only help Wake County elementary school students learn – it could also lead to prizes such as tickets to Carolina Hurricanes games and a field trip to PNC Arena to watch the hockey team practice.

The Carolina Hurricanes and the Wake County school system announced Thursday a new literacy program called “Readvolution,” where prizes will be given both to elementary schools and individual students to encourage them to read more this semester. Between Oct. 2 and Jan. 12, all 114 Wake elementary schools will be challenged to read 2,020 books. Each student is encouraged to read 20 minutes each day outside of school, for a total of 22 hours.

“Much like the skill of an athlete, the earlier that a person starts (reading), and the more one practices, the better one gets,” Wake Superintendent Jim Merrill said at the news conference. “That’s why we’re excited about the ways this project will help develop a habit of reading in our students.”

Competition could be intense to win the prizes.

The big prize is a field trip in February to PNC Arena for nine elementary schools that have the highest number of books read, based on the percentage of their student population. The trip for more than 10,000 students will include watching the Hurricanes practice and other special activities to celebrate their school’s academic accomplishments.

Ten elementary schools will get a visit from Stormy and the Storm Squad. Students at those schools will be eligible for items such as tickets and hats.

The Hurricanes could be on the hook for as many as 75,000 free tickets this season if every student completes the 22-hour reading goal to get a complimentary ticket.

“I’d love to put a rush on the box office with 40,000-50,000 tickets,” Merrill said. “We’ll promote it and push this pretty heavily. I think that is an opportunity for our students and is a nice reward.”

The Hurricanes will also recognize 18 teachers for their contributions to the reading program.

During the program, students will place paper hockey pucks that list their name and the book they read in a large hockey goal graphic mounted on a wall at their school. Cengage Learning created an online tracking system where students can log in and record their daily reading activity for the challenge.

The program celebrates both the Hurricanes’ 20th anniversary and the school system’s Vision 2020 Strategic Plan, which among other things calls for raising the graduation rate to 95 percent by 2020.

Canes’ star player Jeff Skinner said helping out in the reading program is part of the obligation that athletes have to set a good example. Skinner already has a program where he invites area teachers to games and donates money to their classes.

“This program, being able to reach young kids and maybe foster that sort of passion or enjoyment of reading, is something that I think in the future hopefully will pay dividends and hopefully improve a bunch of people’s lives down the road,” he said.

This story was originally published September 21, 2017 at 2:41 PM with the headline "Encourage your kids to read, parents – it just might get them Carolina Hurricanes rewards."