The standing record before the event Thursday was 415 people.
The Extreme Reading Relay was organized and planned by the International Dyslexia Association as part of its efforts to bring awareness to learning disabilities and raise funds for their cause.
Twenty- six schools participated in the event with each student reading a sentence from “The Sword of Darrow.”
This book was written by a father and son team after the son was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 8, according to Nikki Rigdon, marketing and communication manager for Bachman Academy.
Rigdon said the event was a “great opportunity for us to show what we have accomplished and what these kids have accomplished since they’ve been here.”
“Some of these kids couldn’t read when they came here. We start at middle school, and it’s traumatic for a student in ninth or 10th grade — not knowing how to read,” Rigdon said.
The book is specifically designed for easy reading by those with learning differences such as dyslexia. The print is larger, words are spaced farther apart and reading material is in a san serif font, Rigdon said.
She said fonts that give “feet” to the letters are often distracting to students with dyslexia or other learning differences.
Bachman was the second school to read in the relay after technical difficulties delayed the start of the event by nearly an hour. Thirty-seven students from the school in grades six to 12 read during the event.
“The Extreme Reading Relay is an empowering event for students,” Kristi Bowman, director of Development for the IDA, said in a press release. “These children have the opportunity to break a world record doing what they struggle with the most: reading.”
The event was streamed live so that schools could see each school as they read.
Rigdon said it was one of the biggest technically complex events in education history.
The event raised funds for individual schools and the International Dyslexia Association through donors which sponsored the event.
“The International Dyslexia Association is a nonprofit, scientific, and educational organization dedicated to the study and treatment of dyslexia as well as related language-based learning differences,” according to a press release.
