On Wednesday, April 21st, we are running the Reading Link Community Challenge (virtually this year!). If you don’t know what the Reading Link Challenge is, it’s a program that has been running for over 10 years where schools sign up teams to read 6 different books. These books are selected by a team of library staff from the participating libraries who look for a set of books that includes wide gender appeal, varied reading level, positive reviews in library journals, multicultural themes, and Canadian/BC authors.
We start the process in September where we reach out to all the schools to see who is interested in participating. We order the books and deliver them to each of the schools who have signed up. In November, we visit with each of the schools to introduce the books and then we have a school-based challenge in March.
The students, all from grades 4 and 5, read 6 books. They spend so much time getting to know those books so well and the questions that are asked are tough! There are short answer, multiple choice, true & false and fill in the blank questions.
All the teams in a school compete by answering 30 questions. The team with the highest score goes on to the Community Challenge where they compete against the other schools in Coquitlam.
The schools that are participating from Coquitlam this year are:
1. Baker Drive
2. Cape Horn
3. Our Lady of Fatima
4. Parkland
5. Pinetree Way
6. Queen of All Saints
7. Ranch Park
8. RC MacDonald
9. Smiling Creek
The winner of the Community Challenge gets a big trophy which they get to keep for a year! They also receive medals in the Community Challenge for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place. But, all the teams are winners in our hearts because these are kids that put themselves out there and work so hard!
The top 2 teams from the Community Challenge goes on to the Grand Challenge. There, they will compete against students from North Vancouver, Fraser Valley, New Westminster and Surrey! There’s some tough competition out there! Please join us in wishing the best of luck to these teams!
Photo: 2019 Reading Link Champions, Porter Elementary