I have been involved in the setup this year at my current school, and have been busy promoting the challenge, and having it to do it with no resources from the official website as nothing has been provided. Other Teacher Librarian's have flagged this as well over the past week or two on message boards. To promote the challenge, I decided to create a "logo" from a header used in the reading log from last year. I have sent it to one Teacher Librarian. Feel free to contact me if you want a copy. However I am aware from the NSW PRC newsletter that promotional material is on the way.
I have visited a number of English classes and have been encouraged by the response by the students. In fact it looks like the number of kids participating is set to double from 2015.
There have been a few that have expressed their interest that you might not normally associate with reading. I will admit that while it is not a race to see who reads 20 books first, some have joined after I persuaded them do so as a way of outshining their peers., and using that as a challenge for them to hopefully get them to read 20 books.
Yes, I have certainly got in early and why not. With busy lives, the kids need as much time as possible to read. I felt last year that there was rushing towards the end, and that worked against some kids. It was too late to reach the goal. Getting them to read before the official start has been a focus with a brochure printed out and distributed.
