Tifton, GA

Imagine a place where children prefer reading books to watching television. Imagine Tifton, Ga.

This south Georgia town of 15,000 has proclaimed itself “The Reading Capital of the World.” As students check out library books by the handful and civic clubs try to “out read” one another, this agricultural community has read more than 1 million books since signing on with a reading program designed to expand both educational performances and literacy levels.

“Tifton is … loaded with ‘can-do’ folks,” says Mike Brumby, director of the Tift County Foundation for Educational Excellence Inc. The nonprofit foundation, launched by a citizens’ group in 1989 to enhance excellence in the public schools, is a driving force motivating Tifton’s love of reading.

Using a software program called Accelerated Reader produced by Renaissance Learning in Wisconsin, participants—of all ages—take reading comprehension tests on a variety of titles. Point values are assigned to successful answers based on the content of books—Dr. Seuss is worth half a point, Tolstoy 130 points—resulting in rewards ranging from new pencils to watching your school principal wrestle a pig to a trip to an Atlanta Braves game, 200 miles north.

“You can’t get (the answers) from a movie,” says Brumby. “To pass a test you’ve got to pay attention to what you read.”

Tifton’s reading-mania began in 1996 when Terri Nalls, media specialist at Charles Spencer Elementary School, applied to the foundation for a $3,500 grant to bring Accelerated Reader to her school. Nalls saw students checking out books for the pictures and wanted to “get them to read for comprehension.” She saw that while other local schools had the software, “no-one had tried it with younger kids (kindergarten through third-grade).”

The program was an overwhelming success at Spencer. The library soon was papered with posters tracking “point clubs,” and formerly disruptive students reached for books when teachers turned their backs.

Amazed, the foundation, underwritten by local businesses, implemented an Accelerated Reader summer reading program at the public library in 1997, setting four goals. In a county for which the National Institute for Literacy estimates 26 percent of adults are functionally illiterate, they vowed to increase Tifton students’ national reading test scores by 25 percent, increase library circulation by 50 percent, accumulate 1 million Accelerated Reader points, and most importantly to Brumby, “engender a sense of pervasive community pride.”

Tifton’s 11 public schools have added Accelerated Reader, and English as a second language classes use it at the public library. As the Reading Capital effort expanded, the foundation launched “Points for Books” in 1999. Every reading point a teacher earns directs 50 cents to his or her school. Parents and grandparents soon joined in, and within two summers, Brumby says, the foundation provided more than $30,000 in books to area schools and the public library.

Blakely McClellan, 7, says, “Once you read, you get really interested” in new books. Mayor Paul Johnson, who reads to his grandson’s kindergarten class, sees a lasting benefit for the Reading Capital of the World. “As the community becomes more literate,” he says, “there are better economic opportunities for everyone.”

The foundation has 21 board members and three ex-officio school system members and funds other projects such as a Parent Help Line informing callers of lesson plans, homework assignments, and classroom activities. The annual Teacher of the Year award is a popular foundation endeavor. Nominated teachers, surprised in their classrooms by a newspaper photographer or even a live radio broadcast, are honored at a banquet attended by speakers such as Georgia’s Secretary of State Cathy Cox.

As for the goals, test scores have jumped an average of 14.1 points, and Tifton’s readers achieved 1 million Accelerated Reader points last fall. They celebrated by once again going for a record. On Nov. 15, 2000, Johnson led a packed high school stadium in reading aloud from Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat, as a 30-foot Cat in the Hat balloon swayed overhead. The crowd then read silently from books of their own.

The dual accomplishments—the most people reading together in one place as well as the most reading together silently—are being presented to the Guinness Book of World Records for consideration.

Jessica Handler is an Atlanta-based writer.

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