Four bicycles are up for grabs for Grade 1 and Grade 2 students at Wallaceburg Christian School, thanks to the Knights of Pythias.
Wallaceburg residents Doug McCallum, grand chancellor of Michigan, and Jerry Blake, chancellor commander for the local K of P, visited the Wallaceburg school on Thursday to discuss the opportunity for students in Melanie Vanderheide’s Grade 1/2 class.
“In Texas, someone thought of the idea ‘why don’t we encourage students to read by giving a bike, or a prize’,” McCallum said.
“Through the Knights, now it is catching on all through the United States and we’re trying to get it to catch on here.”
Students in Vanderheide’s class will be given ballots this semester for every book they read in class and at home. Eventually two boys and two girls from the class will win a bicycle and a helmet.
Vanderheide said she thinks it is a wonderful opportunity for the students.
“It’s a great incentive,” she said.
“We encourage them everyday to be reading at school and at home to build their reading fluency and to have the opportunity to give them something that they are excited about to earn something at the end of it, a goal, it’s always wonderful. In addition to that, we’ll get to see their reading improve and a love and a joy for reading.”
Wallaceburg Christian School is located at 693 Albert Street in Wallaceburg.
