1. A Million Words or More is Your Ticket out the Door

2. Why a Reading Campaign? Students need to read about one million words a year in order to develop sufficient vocabulary to continually improve their reading proficiency (Nagy and Herman, 1987). In order to achieve these one million words, students need to spend thirty minutes a day reading at a rate of 250 words per minute for two hundred days out of a year (Irvin, 1990).

3. Purpose of the 25 Books Campaign To increase love of reading Students read at in- dependent level Students select books based on interest Students develop the habits of good readers To read one million words at each grade level

4. Why One Million Words? Children learn to read by reading! The more words read, the more opportunities to learn vocabulary Vocabulary knowledge leads to reading comprehension Building vocabulary strengthens communication

5. 400 words on each page X 150 pages in a book (least number of pages per book) 60,000 words in one book Standard: 25 books, based on 60,000 words in each book, equals 1,500,000 words read annually.

6. Reading Requirements Read 25 books or book equivalents Fiction (traditional and contemporary) Nonfiction (traditional and contemporary) Three different literary forms ( biography, autobiography, newspaper article, magazine article, autobiography or essay) At least five different writers

7. Reading Journal Log