Monday, 4 December, 2017

The Andrews Labor Government is giving more children in Gippsland the chance to read with a child’s height worth of books awarded to the East Sale Kindergarten.

East Sale Kindergarten was the lucky regional winner of the Bookshelf Scavenger Hunt prize thanks to student Ari Dyce.

Member for Eastern Victoria Harriet Shing today presented Ari with a personal parcel of books and the East Sale Kindergarten with 100 books.

Ari is five years old and enjoys reading books. He was helped to find, and read, his scavenger hunt books by both his family, and the staff and student group, at East Sale Kindergarten.

Both Ari’s parents and staff at the kindergarten are very excited and proud of Ari’s achievement in winning the regional prize for the scavenger hunt.

The student group at East Sale Kindergarten is also very eager and excited to see what the one hundred books may be.

The Bookshelf Scavenger Hunt competition set a goal for children to read different types of books such as ones that rhyme, ones about animals and ones with a number in the title.

The competition rewards one Melbourne and one regional Victoria winner with 100 new books for their early learning centre from Penguin Random House Australia, who partnered with the Labor Government for this initiative.

More than 250,000 registered from more than 3000 schools, early childhood services and homes across Victoria as part of the Premiers’ Reading Challenge.

Participants ranging from birth to Year 10 were tasked with reading or experiencing a set number of books depending on their year level.

More than 8,000 children participated in the early childhood category, which encouraged families to share a book with children who have not yet started school.

Reading regularly with children from the day they are born is a simple and highly beneficial way to boost their literacy and numeracy skills, and improve their school results and future job prospects.

Since the Premiers’ Reading Challenge began 13 years ago, almost 2.5 million students and children have read more than 45 million books.

It is an important literacy initiative that encourages more children and young people to read more often.

A key target is to increase the number of Year five and Year nine students reaching the highest levels of achievement in reading by 25 per cent – and the challenge will help meet that goal.

Quotes attributable to Member for Eastern Victoria Harriet Shing:

“Ari has set a great example to those around him, as he showed great determination to complete the challenge. It will be exciting for all East Sale Kindergarten students to see what books are in the boxes – “Possum magic” or “I’m going on a bear hunt” maybe?

“It’s exciting to be able to provide children at East Sale Kindergarten even more books to read, enjoy and learn from.”