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| READY TO GO: Bendigo Bank Regional Manager John Sirolli, Swan Hill Regional Library’s Ann Blencowe, Bendigo Bank Swan Hill Branch Manager Heather Grant and Community U members Lea Johnson and Peter Beardsley. |
Wednesday 8 February 2012
Grade six children in 25 Swan Hill families will be introduced to the pleasure of books and reading through the new Bag of Books project.
The project will kick off in 2012 as children are entering grade six, and aims to improve literacy skills not just for children, but for whole families.
As part of the project, students and their family members will be invited to the library, where they will be given a bag filled with books and where they will participate in a library tour.
Volunteers will spend time reading with children and will help families to regularly exchange reading material.
Prizes of new books will be used as incentives to encourage children to continue to read.
The project is an initiative of the Creating Learning Opportunities Focus Group – part of the City of Swan Hill Community Plan – and has been supported by the Swan Hill Regional Library.
“The great thing about this project is that it encourages the whole family to be involved in the development of a child's literacy skills,” Focus Group member Sally Bethune said.
“Not only that, the family will be supported by the library, volunteers and the child's school to establish good reading habits and to discover the fun of books and storytelling.”
She said the idea was based on a similar project devised by Ian Thorpe's Fountain for Youth.
In Swan Hill, the library will work with community services and schools, and with sponsorship from Swan Hill Region Community U Committee Bendigo Bank, Beardsley's Swan Hill Newsagency and Swan Hill Rural City Council.
Swan Hill Rural City Council Mayor John Katis said it was an exciting development that had come from the City of Swan Hill Community Plan.
“Literacy and numeracy levels were a focus of the Plan and the Creating Learning Opportunities Focus Group has been driving the development of this project to improve literacy skills in our community,” Cr Katis said.
“The program will also be used by our new arrivals,” he said.
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