A slow and steady win for Team Turtles

The origin stories of champions can sometimes come about in the most unexpected ways. For a group of local ‘turtles,’ they proved that slow—yet steady—hard work can get you pretty far in a competition.

Some students in Grades 4 and 5 at Skwo:wech Elementary—competing under the name Team Turtles—recently took second place in the Reading Link Challenge. Historically, this is a record-setting placement for New Westminster, and placing in this challenge is no easy feat.

The Anchor was privileged to sit down one-on-one with Charlie, Berkley, Olivia, and Minchae—some of the student members of the team—as they walked us through how they worked together to make this happen. Skwo:wech teacher-librarian Elaine Su and teacher Kimalyn Hikida were on hand to help fill in any gaps.

This challenge is not for the faint of heart: team members not only had to read multiple books multiple times, but also had to remember details from them—and they weren’t allowed to use notes, computers, or phones for assistance.

The reading for this competition typically starts in the fall prior, with more formal challenges kicking off in February or March. The Grand Challenge usually happens in May. “You have to write [info about the books] down, and then you have to answer [questions in-person],” says Charlie. The team was required to read a total of six books. This year’s titles were:

• Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn (this was Charlie’s favourite book)

• Dragons in a Bag by Zetta Elliott

• Jada Sly: Artist & Spy by Sherri Winston

• Rez Dogs by Joseph Bruchac

• Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly (Minchae and Berkley both really liked this book)

• The Wild Robot by Peter Brown (Olivia loved this book)

“For the Grand Challenge—the final challenge—we had two weeks, I think? First there was our class challenge, where our team and two other teams competed in the library. Then there was a school competition from the different classes, in the gym. And then there were two teams that went to the district. Team Turtles, and Fantastic Fudge,” explained Minchae, confirming that the Turtles were not of the chocolate kind, but named after the animal.

When asked why they chose the name Team Turtles, Charlie laughed. “[We chose the name] because we didn’t know we’d get that far in the beginning!”

Ms. Su, who helped the teams throughout the competition, explained that they were required to choose a team name corresponding to an assigned letter from the alphabet. “We had so much participation in the classes that I gave each class a set of alphabet letters, and said [for example], ‘you have team A to E.’ [It was] just to simplify the naming process, you had to find a team name that worked with that letter. They got ‘T,’ and turtles was what they came up with.”

As the team continued to climb through the ranks, Charlie admitted it was somewhat nerve-wracking.

“[The challenges were] kind of scary, because some of us thought that it was the Grand Challenge, but it wasn’t. And it was me and my best friend’s team from this school, and our team and a different team from Herbert Spencer moved on, but [my best friend] lost.”

There were points in the competition that felt surreal for the kids—including one portion that involved their attire. “[For one stage] it was Drop Everything and Read Day. And we were all wearing pyjamas,” Charlie says, with everyone around the table bursting into laughter. “Yes, they showed up to this district challenge with all of the other teams, ready to intimidate their opponents in their pyjamas,” adds Ms. Su.

“At the end of the challenge, we did this sudden death thing. There were teams were tied for first and second place,” Charlie added, with Ms. Su explaining that there were so many teams near the top that it took several rounds to declare who’d be nabbing first, second, and third place.

Along with the first-runner up placement by Team Turtles, their friends at Herbert Spencer finished in third place. The first-place winners were “The Human Books” from Surrey. Prizes included medals, along with word searches, pens, a bookmark and even some very snazzy colour-changing cups and pencils.

Despite months upon months of comprehensive reading, Charlie, Berkley, Olivia and Minchae have continued to nurture their love for it. When asked what the secret was to make sure people took the time to open up a book, they offered some sound advice.

“I usually bring books wherever I go, read in the car, and while I wait for something. When I come to school early, I just pick up a book and read. While you wait for someone or something is a good idea,” said Minchae. “Yeah, just make time for it,” added Berkley.

“If you just have any free time to read, try to read. It’s better for you than watching TV or doing stuff on your phone. Just try and find the time,” suggested Olivia.

“Don’t make so many plans, so you can just have a day or two to relax and read a book. What I always do is I read before I go to sleep, so I make time,” said Charlie.

Ms. Su and Ms. Hikida both say they couldn’t be prouder.

“We were pretty impressed. They got better very quickly, because the way the competition starts is, by the time they’ve started, they’ve only had a chance to read one or two books,” says Su, who did note that Minchae went out and bought all the books and had read each of them six times. “She crammed hard for this!” Charlie added that Minchae would pass around copies of her books to her teammates so they could strategically study for the competition.

“We would take tests with each other,” said Minchae, “and some of the questions that were on our tests were actually in the competition.

“The very first week we did a challenge, all the teams—and I will say this is for all the teams across the whole school because they’d only had a few weeks with the books—they all couldn’t answer a lot of questions, so it feels demoralizing. And this team was so demoralized, they were in tears,” says Su. “They were very disappointed in themselves, and very upset, even though I was saying, ‘it’s OK! We’ve got a long way to go, and these are just practice rounds.”

But that wasn’t good enough for Team Turtles, who then made it a goal to dominate.

“When they won our school competition, they cried. Happy tears!” Su recollects, with Charlie and Minchae adding that they both screamed and cried when they were told their team would be moving on.

“They worked so hard. They would beg me to meet during silent reading and during class time and consolidate their knowledge,” says Ms. Hikida, who teaches a number of these students.

“I’ve been saying this whole time that this team has no chill in the best possible way,” says Su. “I couldn’t care less about who could answer the most trivia facts about books. I care that they had so much pride in their work. They worked together as a team. They supported each other. They were happy for each other, and kind to each other. They found joy in the books.”

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