Cozy in their pajamas for Winter Story Day, members of the Safety Patrol are the first students to greet Director of Lower School Susanne Swain ’78 after her campout
Susanne Swain ’78, Director of Lower School at Hampton Roads Academy, spent the chilly night of Monday, February 9, outside in a tent on campus to mark her students’ successful completion of the division’s annual Reading Challenge.
To kick off the spring 2026 semester, Swain set a goal for the Lower School student body to read for a collective 100,000 minutes over four weeks, from January 9 to February 6. The rules were simple: Each evening, students in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 4 were to record the time they spent reading for pleasure—not for homework or other curricular activities—either independently or, in the case of the youngest students, with their parents. If the Lower Schoolers met the challenge, Swain promised to reward them by camping out in the heart of winter.
The Lower School director knew her goal was ambitious but achievable. Sure enough, the students rose to the occasion and surpassed their target by far, logging an outstanding 126,859 minutes of reading. True to her word, Swain gathered her warmest pajamas and blankets and prepared for a cold night.
Like the First Grade-Senior Buddies program, Swain explained, the yearly Lower School Reading Challenge and the stunt that follows help to inspire a lifelong love of reading among young Navigators by introducing a fun twist on a mentally stimulating activity.
As the students are challenged to engage in reading outside of course materials, she said, “we hope that they are picking up a book and getting engrossed in it—maybe a different genre or something they haven’t tried before—and that it sparks that interest.”
A Partnership with Lower School Families
Mrs. Swain warms up after a cold February night outdoors
An annual tradition since 2015, the Reading Challenge grew out of the Lower School faculty’s interest in “foster[ing] a partnership between the school and our parents” to stimulate students’ excitement about reading, Swain noted.
Though reading beyond textbooks and worksheets is already part of the Lower School curriculum, she acknowledged that “we have students that are eager and read every night, and we have some students that are less enthralled.” Asking families to sign off on their children’s pleasure reading each evening for a month reinforces the importance of this learning and enrichment opportunity by providing consistent but supportive accountability.
For the youngest students—namely kindergarteners, junior kindergarteners, and pre-kindergarteners, who are just learning to read or developing pre-reading skills—Swain expressed her hope that the Reading Challenge would provide an occasion for “time that the family sets aside in the evening to start that good habit of nightly reading and to foster that sense of the importance of loving a story.”
“It’s as much to encourage our parents as it is to encourage our students,” she said.
A Challenge that Goes Both Ways
In addition to enlisting families as cheerleaders for young readers, the Reading Challenge also aims to help students find the motivation to read within themselves by promising an amusing reward for reaching the target number of minutes.
Though the students exceeded Swain’s expectations this winter, there have been a few years when they have fallen short of her goal, she recalled. The prize she offers is “not a given,” she said. “They really do have to earn the minutes.”
Students gather around Mrs. Swain as she reads a seasonally themed book for Winter Story Day
For years, Swain’s reward for the students was to climb up on the roof of the school. This time, however, she decided to change things up by moving the culmination of the Reading Challenge to an earlier date, coinciding with the Lower School’s annual Winter Story Day on February 10. In so doing, she challenged herself to earn the cozy pleasures of that beloved tradition.
The night before the students came to school snug in their pajamas, Swain slept outdoors on HRA’s campus. Lower Schoolers wished her well with such encouraging notes as “Scared is normal,” “We’re always near,” and “You are so brave and unstoppable.”
The following morning, as she warmed herself inside the building, she welcomed the students to an indoor campsite in the Lower School Commons, mirroring the one where she had spent the previous evening. The students gathered there by grade level around a makeshift “bonfire” for a winter-themed story, read by the Lower School director, before enjoying a cup of hot chocolate.
“I am so proud of the children for achieving the goal for the 2026 Reading Challenge,” Swain said. “Although it was a frosty night, I’m happy to say that I survived the campout and enjoyed my time reading with the students during Winter Story Day.”
