Indy-area elementary school wins 2023 I Love to Read Challenge

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — After eight weeks of competition, one group of central Indiana third-graders has bested the competition to win the I Love to Read Challenge for 2023.

This year, 120 classrooms in 55 different schools around central Indiana joined the contest. More than 2,600 students read for a combined total of more than 1.2 million minutes.

The winner of the I Love to Read challenge for 2023, with a total of 76,586 minutes read, is Mrs. Kimberly Barnes’ class at Irvington Elementary School in Indianapolis!

Mrs. Barnes’ students will receive a championship trophy, a pizza party, a classroom library refresh from Scholastic, and more!

This year’s runner-up is Ms. Tricia Johnson’s third-grade class at Robey Elementary School in Indianapolis.

WISH-TV is proud to partner with the NCAA Readers Become Leaders program to encourage a love of reading in third-graders at a time when students are developmentally adapting from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” 

Recent studies show that young children have been hit the hardest by academic disruptions from the pandemic, so reading is more important now than ever.