By Lisa Goudy
During the month of October, students are being put to the test.
The Regina Public Library's fourth annual Mayor's Mega-Minute Reading Challenge kicked off this year, challenging students from kindergarten to Grade 8 to read as many books as possible until the end of October.
Darlene Hincks Joehnck, the chair of the Regina Public Library board, said the challenge is a successful way to get students to read, starting at a young age.
"The goal is to get students reading and improve literacy within our community and it's meeting those goals," said Hincks Joehnck. "It's just really great to see students excited about the competition and getting involved and doing the reading and I think that leads to lifelong reading.
"It's important because the students participate. We've had great participation over the years from the students and what a great way to promote reading among young people and promote literacy."
Individual prizes for bookstore gift cards are drawn weekly and the 12 classes that have read the most books will see a feature film at the Galaxy Cinema.
Every student who picks up a book will also be entered to win two $500 gift certificates to an electronics store and two bicycles worth $350 each.
The grand prize is a trip for four to a California theme park, along with $500 spending money.
"We hope to have a lot of students that get involved and do the reading," Hincks Joehnck said. "That's our greatest hope."
Additionally, Mayor Pat Fiacco will take part in three events for the schools with the most minutes.
He will take part in a pizza party with students, dress as a rock star, sing his favourite karaoke song for students and he and the winning school's principal will have a scooter race. Afterwards, the students have a chance to win those scooters.
"There's just different things like that to get people reading and get them to log their minutes that they're reading," she said.
The reading logs can be printed from www.mayorsreadingchallenge.ca or picked up at any library location.
"It's been very successful because we have students that are very interested in the program and they're reading," said Hincks Joehnck. "They're probably reading more than they might normally, because there's contests involved in it, so in our view it's been a very successful program and that's why we continue it on."
Mayor's Mega-Minute Reading Challenge
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