Competitions & Challenges

I understand that reading is a habit. When students are motivated to read regularly, they develop the habits needed to become lifelong readers. My reading competitions are a powerful way to engage your school community while ensuring genuine reading growth for every student.

Why Have an Amira Reading Competition?
- Equitable Access: Amira removes barriers by allowing students to use it anytime, at their individual reading level, regardless of their reading proficiency or book access.
- Stigma-Free: Using Amira, reading appears uniform despite varying abilities and stories. This eliminates the stigma associated with older students reading below grade level.
- Accurate Tracking: Amira accurately tracks the minutes and stories read, ensuring a fair assessment for all participants with consistent and reliable monitoring. To tally students' reading, just check the Tracking Report.
- Amira Support: Our team is here to support all of your Amira needs. We provide everything you need to empower students, track progress, and celebrate growth, ensuring a successful Amira Reading Competition!
- Fun & Festive: We've created several themed reading competitions. Students will enjoy seeing Amira in various outfits and experiencing different adventures as they read, read, read!
Learn more here:
Planning Your Competition

Coordinating a reading competition requires about 2 weeks of preparation before the event. A clear understanding of who, what, when, how, and why the reading competition will take place is essential!

This template is designed to assist you in preparing for the Amira reading competitions. It provides a detailed outline that will help ensure a smooth and enjoyable experience at your school. Use it to organize, start, and manage the competition, ensuring that students remain motivated and enthusiastic throughout.
Customizing Your Competition
We also understand that teachers and administrators have a lot on their plates. To make implementation effortless, we've created a yearlong Amira Competition Calendar that includes five themed reading competitions. Along with enjoyable printable materials for the themed competitions, you will find a multitude of resources to assist you in planning and execution.

The best part? Each competition is fully customizable to meet your school's needs:
1. Choose What to Measure: Decide whether to track the number of stories read or minutes read with Amira.
2. Set Goals and Milestones: Determine the overall goal for students and identify key milestones to celebrate along the way.
3. Define Your Teams: Organize teams by class, grade level, or even the entire school. Or, run the competition with individual students working toward goals and competing within a single classroom.
4. Choose a Competition Style: Decide if teams will compete against each other or work together toward a shared goal.
5. Select Your Winners: Opt for a single winner or multiple winners—tailor the competition to fit your needs!
Setting Goals
When setting a goal for your Amira reading competition, set a SMART goal:
- Specific: Clearly define what students are trying to achieve. Are they aiming to reach a certain number of minutes or stories? Compete against other grade levels?
- Measurable: Ensure progress can be tracked easily to know when the goal is reached or who has won.
- Achievable: Set a realistic goal. Reading 100 stories in a week may not be feasible, but reading 15 stories is challenging yet attainable.
- Relevant: Explain the importance of the goal. Why is it important for students and teachers? What benefits will they gain?
- Time-Bound: Set a clear timeline for the goal. We recommend running the competition over 2-4 weeks.
Rewards & Celebrations
Although intrinsic motivation is the ultimate goal, learning to read can be challenging for many students, and they often need external motivation to develop strong reading habits.

While celebrations like extra recess are fun, we recommend tying rewards directly back to reading, as it reinforces the connection between effort and literacy growth.

Setting reading goals and celebrating achievements not only makes the process enjoyable but also fosters a dynamic learning environment. Acknowledging students' progress with reading-related rewards helps them see the tangible results of their hard work.

Some celebration ideas for your reading competition include:
- Field trip to the library
- Reading awards/certificates
- Dress-up day (as your favorite book character, etc.)
- Movie day based on a book
- Craft or art activity related to a story
- Classroom camping day (reading books in a tent or with flashlights)
- Book swap party
- Principal reads a book to the class
- Special guest reader (local author, community leader, etc.)
- Reading picnic (outside or in the gym)