Welcome Educators!

As a Salt Lake County educator, we invite you and your class to participate in the County Library’s Winter Reading Challenge!

Why?

Winter Reading is a simple, fun challenge that encourages students to read, track their minutes, and earn a free book! Student participation in this program has many benefits, including social, mental, emotional, and physical development, knowledge retention, improved test scores, and increased interest in school subjects. It also provides opportunities for students to connect with their library during the school year and win a free book.

Cost?

Like the materials below—and all County Library programs—the Winter Reading program is free of charge so no one is excluded for financial reasons.

Sign up your class as a group.

Register Now

Any group of students can participate—classrooms, afterschool groups, book clubs, even an entire school.

  • Fill out the online form to register your class.
  • Read 20 minutes every weekday or 15 minutes every day. You can read as a class or encourage students to read at home. Every student’s goal is 400 minutes for the month of February.
  • Record your reading progress using the downloadable reading record below or any tracking method of your choice.
  • Let your librarian know when you’re finished and we’ll get your student’s prize books to you.

Did you know?

In 2026, over 4,700 students participated in Winter Reading with their schools, collectively reading over 1.8 million minutes. Plus, every student received a free book as their prize.

Need More Info?

Still have questions? Please contact us or call at 801.948.7850 for more information.

Winter Reading Group Signups FAQs

You can do this in a few different ways.

If you are reading together as a class, you can:

  • Download and print a reading record for the class. Display it in your classroom or keep it at your desk. Just color in an icon for every day your class reads together for at least 20 minutes!
  • Keep track using your own tool, such as an Excel spreadsheet.
  • Utilize your school or district’s Beanstack account, if applicable.

If students are reading on their own, you can:

  • Download and print a reading record for your students. You can print full-sized sheets or our mini records, which are four to a page.
  • Have students report to you each day how much they read the previous day, and keep track using your own tool, such as an Excel spreadsheet.
  • Have students utilize their school’s Beanstack account, if applicable.

Reading records are available on this page in January 2027. You will also receive an email when they're ready to download.

You will be working with your local branch’s librarian. Once you register, your information will be shared with this librarian, and they will be in contact with you throughout the program.

For general Winter Reading information and specific prize book deliveries, you may hear from the program coordinator, Kaitlyn. Her email is kgundlach@slcolibrary.org.

Any time your class reads as a group. This can include quiet reading time, you reading out loud to them, popcorn reading, listening to an audiobook while working, etc.

We’ve had groups as small as 5 and as large as 700! Groups can be classrooms, entire grades, entire schools, afterschool programs, book clubs, student government groups, extracurricular clubs, and more.

Encourage students to read at home on teacher workdays, holidays, etc. You can also increase your school day reading time to 23.5 minutes.

We have a limited number of Spanish prize books. Reach out to Kaitlyn at kgundlach@slcolibrary.org if you’d like to request some. We will do our best to accommodate.

Unfortunately, no. Our prize books are a mix of leftover Winter and Summer Reading prize books, donations from the public, and gently used weeded materials from our branches. We cannot guarantee titles. We do our best to include books of varying interests and genres in each prize book box.

We do our best to match prize books with grades. In general:

  • K–2: A mix of picture books and early readers
  • Grades 3–4: A mix of early and regular chapter books
  • Grades 5–6: Chapter books
  • Middle school: Chapter books and middle grade
  • High school: Young adult books

We try to mix in graphic novels, nonfiction, and activity books at all levels as well.

For special needs groups, please email Kaitlyn at kgundlach@slcolibrary.org with what kind of books your class would like.

Note: Titles that have been challenged or banned at the state or school district level will not be included in prize book sets.

Yes! We have all levels of prize books, and preschoolers are welcome to participate.

You don’t need to provide proof; we operate on the honor system. Just reach out to your librarian to let them know your group finished, and they’ll take it from there.

If you could let us know, that would be great. We begin putting together prize book boxes for groups months in advance, so these books can be reallocated to others.

Please email your assigned librarian or Kaitlyn at kgundlach@slcolibrary.org to let us know.

There are many different ways. Here are a few:

  • School assembly with a library resources presentation, prize books divided by grade on tables, and classes lining up to choose books.
  • School assembly with librarians presenting for delivery/set up, prize books set on the stage by grade, and individual classes called up to choose books.
  • Class visit with a library resources presentation.
  • Prize books dropped off with you or the school office.
  • Library tour arranged, with groups walking or taking a bus over.
  • Prize books set up in the school library.

For delivering prize books, we love presenting our free resources (homework help, booklists, etc.) and programs to students as part of our visit. However, we understand timing and schedules can make this difficult, so we are also happy to coordinate prize book drop-offs.