staff photo by rowena plett
Chevy Wilson holds one of five Harry Potter books he read during the school year. The sixth-grader passed tests on all the books and won an award for reading and comprehending more words than almost anyone else in his class.
Student is million-word reader
Staff writer
Chevy Wilson of Marion not only read more than one million words the past school year; he also passed tests on every book he read. In other words, he comprehended what he was reading.
Along with others in his sixth-grade class, he was enrolled in a Lexile program that required him to read two books every month on his reading level, as determined by state assessments.
He said he spent every spare minute at school reading. After finishing a book, he would take an online test on it.
“You had to pass the test for it to count,” he said.
He had to answer eight of 10 questions correctly. He passed all but one test on the 17 to 20 books he read and took a retest on that one to pass it.
His favorite books were in the Harry Potter series. He has read five of the seven in the series.
“The longest was 800 pages,” he said.
Chevy lives with his father, Robert; grandmother, Deliliah Belshe; and two sisters.
“Chevy was really good about talking to me about what he read,” Belshe said. “I got educated on the books I read when I was younger. I read them all.”
For being a top reader in his class, Chevy received a certificate and a $20 Amazon gift card for book purchases.