There’s no need to tell OCDE’s Deaf and Hard of Hearing Battle of the Books team to act like they’ve been at the podium before. Because they have.
After top finishes in the preliminaries and playoffs, the DHH team from Venado Middle School earned an all-expenses-paid trip to the national round at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., where the team placed third. Venado’s Kaia Roman was also named an all-star reader of the tournament, which was held March 28-31.
Venado is no stranger to the competition — or to victory. The school’s teams were crowned national champions in 2024, 2022 and 2019, with multiple students also named as all-stars and most outstanding reader over the years.
“Reading is a challenge,” Principal David Longo said of the competition in 2023. “This particular competition has definitely helped emphasize the importance of reading and we’ve seen really nice outcomes from those involved as they matriculate through high school.”
Hosted by Gallaudet University every year, this year’s tournament saw 11 other teams from across the country showcase their literacy and reading comprehension skills in a unique academic event exclusively for students who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Originally created in 2007, Battle of the Books was designed to promote literacy and create friendly competition among students in grades 5 through 8 who are deaf and hard of hearing. Since Gallaudet took over in 2012, the competition has expanded to a national level.
The national round consists of three phases. In the first, readers work together to answer a variety of multiple-choice, true or false and short-answer questions. In the next round, readers take turns answering similar kinds of questions. The final phase — reserved for the national stage — asks each reader to choose from a list of questions and deliver a presentation-style response.
Students are quizzed on a selection of assigned books that all participants must read by the start of the competition. Teams are then placed into one of three divisions based on reading level, with a champion named for each.