The Pizza Hut’s Book It! program is back, and this year, it is also going to be on the digital domain as well. The basic principle remains the same though, that of drawing students to read more with the lure of free pizzas. The students will have to reach certain reading goals that have been set for them by the educators. The reading goals can be the number of books read, the number of pages, or the number of minutes spent reading. The flexibility in setting reading goals is a deliberate attempt to ensure the maximum number of students of all reading abilities are included in the program.

Upon completing a reading goal, the students earn a Book It! Reading Award Certificate which can be used to redeem a one-topping Personal Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut completely free of cost. Each student can earn a maximum of six certificates during each school year, which means up to half a dozen free pizzas for the taking. The program has been in existence since 1984 and more than 65 million students have already had their free pizzas throughout the US. The program runs from October 1 through March 31st, each year.

However, teachers and home-schooling parents now have the option to enroll themselves in the digital version of the Pizza Hut Book It! Program this time via the website set up for this. This way, educators now have the option to connect and communicate with the students and parents via online means. That is not all as there are three free e-books that are being offered this time that parents can download and enjoy with their wards. The free e-books – Ruby Redfort Look Into My Eyes by Lauren Child, Those Shoes, by Maribeth Boelts, and Leroy Ninker Saddles Up – is available to download from the Book It! free e-book Amazon page.

As some key findings from Reading is Fundamental, a nationwide literacy non-profit organization revealed, 34 percent of children entering kindergarten don’t have the skills that they need to just learn how to read. What is also worrisome is that 65 percent of those in the 4th grade read below their grade. Also, it is just 37 percent of ‘students graduate high school at or above reading proficiency level’. No wonder, the study revealed about 8,000 students drop out of high school daily.

It is just this trend that the Pizza Hut Book It! program aims to reverse and make reading fun for the kids.

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