Yesterday, the Premier of Victoria, Steve Bracks, launched his Reading Challenge at the State Library. The aim of the challenge is to get the 458,000 children in all Victorian schools (both government and non-government) between years 3 and nine (ages of say 8 and 14) reading again. The goal is to choose 12 books and read them over the next six months. The main aim is not to teach, but to reintroduce reading as a pleasurable experience.
The Challenge is being run in conjunction with the "Sunday Age" which led off the event with its main editorial yesterday. Registration for the challenge starts this Friday, 6th February, and in order to help people along the organisers have provided booklists split into age groups: years 3 and 4; 5 and 6; and 7, 8 and 9.
About a year ago, the then Federal Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, started a campaign to get parents to read to their children every night. Needless to say, the Federal Government took the piss out of this suggestion at every opportunity, thereby attempting to gain cheap political advantage at the expense of a decent and worthwhile initiative. Hopefully the State Opposition will back this campaign for all its worth.
There should be further announcements about this challenge over the weeks ahead. I would enter my 12-year-old daughter into the challenge, but she'd get through the 12 books in about a fortnight. I'll get her to look through the list for her age-group though. There might be one or two there she hasn't read.
