infonews.co.nz
INDEX
COMMUNITY

Registrations flood in for Summer Reading Challenge

Thursday 13 December 2012, 3:30PM

By Invercargill City Council

482 views

INVERCARGILL

The challenge has been set and around 400 children, teens and young adults have registered and are preparing for a long hot summer of reading.

Outreach Librarian Kirsty Graham said the Invercargill Library was extremely pleased with how many “young challengers” had put their name forward to take part in the programme.

“It’s so exciting to get to the end of the day and see the numbers growing.

“The 2012/2013 Summer Reading Challenge is designed to get children, teens and young adults excited about reading and to learn from a young age the benefits of reading regularly,” Miss Graham said.

This was the third year that the library had hosted a reading programme for the city’s young adults, however the younger group, aged from Years 1 – 8, had been in action since 2004 and every year popularity was growing, she said.

“Past years have proved that this is a fantastic event to be involved with.

“Library staff have had feedback from schools and parents to say that children, teens and young adults who have participated in the programme have gained in literacy and comprehension over the school holidays,” Miss Graham said.

The younger age group must read for 20 minutes a day for 20 days.  A log book is given to them to record their time spent reading for that day.  Once they have completed their logbook they can return it to the library for a prize.

Ms Graham said the older age group ran more like a challenge where they were asked to write a book review about what they had read and then according to what kind of literature they were reading, a novel, poetry, non-fiction, graphic novel or magazine article – they were then allocated points.

“Once they reach 100 points they go in the draw to win a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 or a Sony eReader.

“We wanted to ensure that the challenge was not too hard and not too easy either, we are encouraging our youth to put effort into winning a prize.

“However this is not about prizes, we really want our younger generations to value reading and literacy comprehension as a key component to moving through school and life.” Miss Graham said.