Read Her Lips: Yuck! : Students Become Bookworms, Principal Takes the Bait and Keeps Her Pledge by Eating Some

It was a promise that Shirley DiRado, principal at Colfax Avenue Elementary School, knew she couldn’t wiggle out of.

Six weeks ago, she vowed to eat a live worm in front of students who read at least two books in this year’s Read-a-Thon. On Friday, it was time to pay up as about 350 students--more than half the school’s population-packed the auditorium to see if DiRado would really do it.

In the end, the administrator gobbled not one, but three squirming mealworms--one for the Channel 11 crew, who said they might have to leave early, one to make good on her promise and one to spur children to read one more book.

“I’ve been an educator too long to be nervous or scared,” DiRado said between her first and second grub. But, she confessed, patting her stomach, “it’s still in there and I’m trying not to think about it.”

The principal took on the challenge after the Read-a-Thon chairwoman told her that interest in the program was flagging. DiRado decided worms would be the perfect bait to get children hooked on reading.

DiRado the performer took over from DiRado the principal as she selected the “fattest, juiciest” worm from a silvery platter. The school nurse jokingly stood at the ready with a stretcher to heighten the drama of the stunt. Someone played a drum roll. Television cameras from local stations also rolled. Children from kindergarten through sixth grade gasped, laughed and cheered as DiRado gulped the invertebrate. A moment later, in a sleight of hand that would have done Houdini proud, the principal--putting on a look of bafflement--pulled yards of colorful streamers from her mouth.

Because of DiRado’s pledge, the number of students who participated in the Read-a-Thon doubled this year, said program chairwoman Paige Gage. Proceeds, from sponsors who pledge money for each book a child reads, help fund the federal Reading Is Fundamental program at the school, which encourages children to read by distributing free books and sponsoring other activities, including a poster contest and a bookmark-making activity.

In the Read-a-Thon, sponsors pledge money for each book that a child reads. Kindergarten pupils, first-graders and special-education students can get credit for books read to them.

Mealworms--which are not true worms but are beetle larvae--were chosen because they are bred in bran and are less likely to have germs than earthworms, Gage said.

By all accounts, the stunt was a success. Students said that they read so they could attend the assembly, and that they intended to keep on reading.

“I realized that reading was fun. It was cool,” said Kandyce Rolon, 12.

“(Mrs. DiRado is) being like a child, she’s relating to us,” said sixth-grader Daniel Cerny. “It’s like fun and learning combined.”