KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Reading is fundamental, and it can really come in handy when you’re cheering on the Chiefs for the Super Bowl.

Students at Chapel Hill Elementary are competing against students at Jay Cooke Elementary in Philadelphia for a Super Bowl Reading Challenge.

Books are already piling up in Mrs. Kate Calvert’s class in North Kansas City.

“We want to earn our points, not just get points,” Mrs. Calvert said.

Reading one book is a point. Reading 10 pages in a chapter book is one point for older readers.

“One of my kids, first thing she came in, she picked her lunch, she got recess, signed up, and then she picked her book and she came over and said got one, so she started our chain for us,” Mrs. Calvert said.

This was all Mrs. Calvert’s idea.

She’s been doing this challenge since the Chiefs went to the Super Bowl in 2020.

“We get on Twitter,” said Mrs. Calvert. “We get on Facebook and just try to network as much as we can to find a school that wants to compete with us and that wants to play along.”

There’s no grand prize for the winning school, but teachers are grateful students are excited about reading.

“I have a little guy, it’s a little harder to get him to nudge into a good book and this morning during our reading block he sat and read 11 books all on his own and he was eager and excited to show me his great, big stack,” Mrs. Calvert said*.