Contact:
Contact: Sara Sinek ssinek@scholastic.com; 212-343-6899
Nadia Almahdi nalmahdi@scholastic.com; 212-343-6635

New York, NY — September 6, 2012 — As students head back to school, they have something to celebrate – they set a new world record for summer reading, making 2012 the biggest summer of reading ever. As part of the Scholastic Summer Challenge, a free program designed to keep kids reading and having fun while preventing the “summer slide” - the loss of academic skills when students are not in school - more than 193,000 kids representing all 50 states and 25 countries read and logged an impressive 95,859,491 minutes, breaking last year’s world record of 64,213,141 minutes.. In addition to logging their minutes, children participated in weekly reading challenges, earned virtual rewards and contributed to their school’s overall minutes.

The Top 20 schools that read and logged the most minutes will be listed in the 2013 Scholastic Book of World Records, which will be available through Scholastic Book Clubs, Scholastic Book Fairs, book stores nationwide and as an ebook on Storia™ in winter 2012.

"We congratulate all the students who helped set a new Scholastic world record for summer reading," said Francie Alexander, Chief Academic Officer at Scholastic. "It is crucial for kids to read during the summer so they don’t lose any of the academic skills they gained throughout the school year. We are so impressed by how many minutes the children read for. This summer, every child was a winner."

The Top 20 Schools in the 2012 Scholastic Summer Challenge are:

1. Brooksville Elementary School, Brooksville, FL, 3,463,452 (minutes read)
2. Sun Valley Elementary, Monroe, NC, 2,567,912
3. Paine Intermediate School, Trussville, AL, 1,816,380
4. Hill Intermediate School, Houston, TX, 1,290,609
5. St Gregory Elementary School, Tyler, TX, 1,230,063
6. Savannah Country Day School, Savannah, GA, 1,165,200
7. Village Elementary School, Hilton, NY, 1,092,331
8. Oakridge Middle School, Clover, SC, 1,072,746
9. Worsham Elementary School, Houston, TX, 1,057,259
10. Odom Elementary School, Houston, TX, 1,015,633
11. Valley Intermediate School, Pelham, AL, 1,009,897
12. Bright Horizon Family Solution, Charlotte, NC, 999,643
13. George L Hess Education Complex, Mays Landing, NJ, 907,524
14. Riverview Elementary, Saratoga Springs, UT, 884,329
15. Idea Frontier Academy/College Prep, Brownsville, TX, 873,380
16. Liberty Park Elementary School, Greenacres, FL, 849,183
17. Newell Elementary School, Allentown, NJ, 844,801
18. Scott Elementary School, Melrose Park, IL, 832,471
19. Enders- Salk Elementary School, Schaumberg, IL, 828,446
20. Reedy Creek Elementary School, Kissimmee, FL, 824,425

The Scholastic Summer Challenge kicked off its sixth year on May 1, 2012 and ran through August 31, 2012.

To further the message about the importance of summer reading in the U.S. and increase access to books within their communities, 48 Governors’ Spouses and 3 Governors joined the Scholastic Summer Challenge as Reading Ambassadors. On behalf of their participation, Scholastic donated 500 books to each Reading Ambassadors’ school of choice (for a total of 25,500 books) so that students in their state could take home books and read over summer vacation. In addition, the Scholastic Summer Challenge’s nonprofit supporter, Reach Out and Read®, an evidence-based organization that promotes early literacy and school readiness in pediatric exam rooms nationwide, helped to spread the message about the importance of summer reading to parents and children across the country.

For the third year in a row, WordGirl™ served as the national "Ambassador of Summer Reading," in conjunction with the annual Scholastic Summer Challenge. She adopted summer reading as her cause, encouraging kids to read books over the summer because reading introduces new words, and new words, in turn, make better readers.

Visit www.scholastic.com/summer to learn more about the Scholastic Summer Challenge and for more information about Scholastic, visit our Media Room.