UNITY – Family Literacy Day will be celebrated for the 25th year by many Canadian families from Jan. 21-27. Locally, the elementary schools will also be holding various activities to promote reading.
Unity Public School will be holding its annual Family Literacy Night Jan. 24. Families are welcome to join two special guest readers from 6 to 8 p.m. at the school library.
Norman Carter Elementary in Wilkie saw a huge success at last year’s book swap, so the school decided to hold it again this year. School librarian, Roxanne Greenwald, said last year there were no books left at the end of the event. The book swap allows students to bring gently used books from home, where they will line the halls of the building. Students will be given a ticket to claim a new-to-them book, but also have opportunities to earn extra tickets.
At St. Peter’s School, staff have created a week of literacy-related activities. Principal Deanna Edmond said the focus on literacy will be in the classroom.
“There will be an assembly to give students an introduction to what the week will hold and teachers will be sharing their favourite reads and why they enjoy them.
“The school will also take part in a reading contest, where we hope students will be read 400 books collectively before Thursday,” she added.
Other activities throughout the week include a game of Taple, Father Greg reading to individual classrooms, a family night and a day to dress as their favourite book character before ending the week with a dance.
“The theme for Literacy Day is ‘Let’s have a family party!’ so we decided to host a dance in the afternoon for the Accelerated Readers program participants,” said Edmond.
The first Family Literacy Day was organized in 1999, promoting the importance of reading and other activities related to literacy as a family. It was discovered a daily reading or learning activity is crucial to a child’s development while improving their literacy skills, as well as those of parents.
