The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) and the Arkansas State Library are pleased to announce the annual selection process for a book to receive the Arkansas Diamond Primary Book Award and the Charlie May Simon Book Award.
The book to receive the Diamond Primary Book Award will be selected in April by students in kindergarten, first, second, and third grades. It is hoped that students in the schools have been participating in reading the books and that teachers and library media specialists have selected some titles for reading aloud. Please note that children in Grades K-3 will need to have read or heard at least three of the books from the 2009-2010 lists in order to vote. It should be made clear to the children that each child may vote for only one title.
Because of the age group involved in the Diamond Primary Book Award, the reading committee suggests that when books are read to children, the teachers or library media specialists may wish to devise a plan for helping the children vote on the books. This may be done by reading all the books to the children in a condensed amount of time and then asking the children to vote, or the books may have been read to the children over an extended period of time but a review of the books may be necessary for children to vote. Young children may have forgotten some of the books if the books were read at the beginning of the year.
The Charlie May Simon (CMS) Book award will be selected by children in Grades 4, 5 and 6. This year’s award will be selected by children across Arkansas participating in reading the books and hearing the books read aloud by teachers and library media specialists. This is an opportunity to engage the children in reading carefully selected books from this year’s list. Please note that children in Grades 4, 5 and 6 should have read or heard at least three of the books from the 2009-2010 lists in order to vote.
This year, the votes for both awards will be submitted electronically. Attached is a ballot/tally-sheet (Excel document) that contains entries for both the Diamond Book Award and Charlie May Simon Book Award. This sheet is to be reproduced by the schools and used by the students to vote. The votes should then be tallied in each school and the total number of votes for each title should be entered electronically on the form. The completed form should be emailed to the address at the bottom of the form no later than Friday, April 9, 2010.
The 2010-2011 reading lists (Microsoft Word documents) for both the Arkansas Diamond Primary Award and the Charlie May Simon Book Award are attached.
The results of this year’s voting will be posted in May 2010.