WOW Reading Challenge kicks off another season

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

On the ice, Yarmouth Mariners captain Jordan Scott has been leading his team and the MJAHL league in scoring. But off the ice, the hockey player says literacy and reading should be everyone’s goal.

“It’s important to set a good example and show them that there’s obviously more to us than just hockey. Our reading and our school work is just as important, they go hand in hand,” Scott said after reading books to students in grades primary and two at Meadowfields Community School.

Members of the Yarmouth Mariners junior A hockey team are helping the Yarmouth branch of the Western Counties Regional Library kick off year two of its WOW Reading Challenge in three Yarmouth elementary schools – Meadowfields, South Centennial and Central.

Last year these schools lived up to the WOW name, with students at the three schools combining to read over 65,000 books. This year the bar is being set even higher.

“We’re encouraging the kids to read more than 70,000 books this year,” said Debbie Little of the library, who said it is encouraging to see the interest and enthusiasm of children when it comes to reading. And this year the initiative is expanding beyond the Yarmouth area to also include the library’s branches in Barrington and Clarks Harbour.

The WOW Reading Challenge is a partnership between libraries and the RCMP. The main goal behind the program is to increase literacy rates since low literacy rates are linked to those who commit crime. The program aims to fight crime one book at a time.

Aside from those participating locally, last year 80 schools took part in the program and in four-and-a-half months read almost 1.1 million books.

Throughout the duration of the program there are also prizes and other special treats offered as incentives to keep reading.

RCMP Constable John Kennedy, who has helped coordinate the program with the Yarmouth branch of the Western Counties Regional Library, likens literacy to a sport. The more you do it, he said, they better you get at it. So it’s appropriate that athletes are helping the library kick off another season of the program.

Also making the rounds of classrooms at Meadowfields school on Nov. 5 was Mariners goalie Dallas Ungurian who said it is good for students to see hockey players reading off the ice.

“I think it gives them another perspective on is,” he says. “Being a role model is the strongest thing that you can be for them.”

And as role models, promoting literacy is something that is a win-win for everyone.