Empire Community School is encouraging families to read with their children at home in order to boost their literacy skills.
The school hosted Family Literacy Day on Friday, Feb. 2 as part of activities to mark Literacy Day, which was on January 27. Family Literacy Day also forms part of the school’s literacy initiatives that take place throughout the school year.
For Family Literacy Day, Empire Community School invited parents to read with their children. The school had six sessions spread across different classrooms where parents got an opportunity to engage their children in several reading activities.
The sessions carried various themes and settings which showed parents different ways in which they can engage their child in reading activities. The sessions were: reading under the table; reading with technology; reading in the dark with flash lights; snuggle up and read under the blanket; story and snack time; as well as reading under tents. The sessions saw 135 students benefiting.
Kelly Logan, principal at Empire Community School, said this activity encourages students to read as well as show parents different ways in which they can read with their kids.
“To celebrate Family Literacy, we decided to have a family reading challenge, where all family members were invited to come to the school to read with their child. We had six stations set up. At the end of the sessions, families also got an opportunity to win prizes as well as Warrior tickets that were up for grabs,” Logan said.
“Home reading is very important, especially reading with your parents so we wanted to bring parents here to encourage this. We wanted to show them different ways they can read with their child and getting them [their children] involved in reading books and literacy.”
She says this is not the only activity of this type as the school has several literacy initiatives throughout the school year.
“We usually do this kind of activity throughout the year. For example, we have Books and Bubble-gum where we also encourage parents to read with their children. We also have our 'One Book, One School' literacy initiative coming up at the end of February where the whole school will be reading and much more,” she said. “We also got a $200 grant from the Moose Jaw Literacy Network to support this Family Literacy Day activity.”
Tony Baldwin, Director of Education with the Prairie South School Division, was also at Empire School where he was an active part of Family Literacy Day. He visited several schools across the community that had reading events.
“We know that reading is the skill that helps kids with all other skills so, anything we can do at our schools to advance children is setting them up for a good life. I am always excited when I get to attend these events in the community. It is also great to see so many parents take part. The relationship between the school and parents is important because parents play a big role.”
