Students at Holy Family Catholic School in Wallaceburg are challenging other schools across the St. Clair Catholic District School Board to take part in the ‘Amazing Race Reading Challenge’.
Daniel Rolo, a Grade 7/8 teacher told the Sydenham Current as part of their application to the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation, Holy Family made the challenge as part of ‘I Read Canadian Day’ on February 17.
“Our school has been involved in the national ‘I Read Canadian’ initiative now for two years and our students are actually featured in the national promotional video this year for the launch of ‘I Read Canadian Day’,” Rolo said.
“We have been working with multiple-award winning Canadian children’s author, Eric Walters, on promoting Canadian literature in our school board, but also nationally.”
Rolo, who is friends with Walters, said he was responsible for creating several of the promotional videos for the ‘I Read Canadian’ event as well.
“As a way to encourage students to read while promoting Canadian literature, we came up with an ‘Amazing Race Canada Reading Challenge’ whereby school teams try to make their way across Canada… starting (at) St. John’s, and finishing in Whitehorse, by reading books.”
Rolo added: “For every book students read, they move their school team a certain number of kilometres along the 13,951 km route. Schools face different bonus challenges and ‘detours’ along the way.”
Rolo said they are lucky to have partnered with ORCA Book Publishers as well, and are able to offer the winning school $1,000 in new books for their school library.
“As of (the end of February), we have eight schools and close to 1,200 students participating in this initiative from across the St. Clair Catholic District. The response has been incredibly positive and students are highly engaged in reading.”
