Abigail Drake is a sixth grader at Sebastopol Attendance Center who loves to read. With only one semester left in the school year, she has already earned 283.7 points in Accelerated Reading.
Most students will tell you they don’t particularly like to read, but Drake is different. She said, “Reading gives me a quiet place that I enjoy.” The most pages she has ever read in a book was 830. Drake regularly reads a 30-chapter book in the time span of one week. She has a collection of Harry Potter books she’s working to finish now. “I’m on the last section of the Harry Potter books. I’ve read six books so far,” she said. “The Harry Potter books are adventurous. At first it’s going to be boring, but in the middle and end it gets better.”
Drake sets a goal on how many chapters or pages she wants to read in a day. Her favorite author is Chris Colfer and she enjoys to read mystery, adventurous, and wizard books. “I enjoy reading Chris Colfer’s books because he makes everything about the characters interesting,” she explains. “He makes them feel like they are telling the story, but they are not.”
By the end of the school year Drake plans to have read 1,000 books and amassed an impressive 500 AR points. In May, Drake will be one of the top students nominated to receive the Accelerated Reader Award for the sixth-grade class.
If Drake receives the award it will be a well-deserved accomplishment that she plans to keep for a lifetime. “If I win the award I will take the newspaper article and the award, then put them together in my scrapbook to always remember,” she said.
Next year Drake will move on to middle school at Sebastopol Attendance Center and will have new classes and a busier schedule, but she will not let that slow down her reading. She plans to continue to make time for herself to read as many good books as possible.
Drake has her afternoons and evenings planned out so that she can maximize her time each day. “First, I’ll do all of my homework, then I read until 9:00 p.m. when I start getting ready for bed, and at 10:00 p.m. it’s my bedtime”
Betsy Wilson is one of Drake’s teacher and she’s very proud of her and her accomplishments in reading. “I’m so proud of Abigail of all the hard work she has done this year,” Wilson said. “She has 283.7 AR points already this year and she has read the whole Harry Potter series. The first thing she wants to do when she comes in is take an AR Test on the book she has read.”
Randi Stewart is Drake’s elementary principal and she also expresses how proud she is of the overachieving sixth grader. Stewart said, “I’m super proud of Abby. She’s an inspiration and a role model.”
Drake has made reading an important part of her life at an early age, but her dedication to learning will serve her well as she works her way through school. At this early age she has shown the ability to set goals and achieve the goals she sets she continues her studies.
