Two schools in west Airdrie are celebrating all things literacy and reading this winter.
Coopers Crossing School hosted its annual Literacy Month throughout January, while just a few kilometres away, Windsong Heights School is promoting similar sentiments in the coming weeks with its Love of Reading Month.
“This has been going on for years,” said Rachelle Prud’homme, the assistant principal at Coopers Crossing School. She said starting last year, the school's staff created a choice board of different activities for each classroom to choose from.
“It’s kind of like a menu of choices,” she said. “It was a huge hit, so we did the same thing this year, tweaking some of the activities.”
Prud’homme said the yearly celebration of reading included plenty of fun activities and even some competition for the school’s students throughout the month. She said the school is split into four “family house teams” – the Curious Chameleons, Brave Belugas, and Polite Penguins – who earned house points by completing various tasks pertaining to reading and literacy.
“Each activity on the choice board is worth a series of different points,” Prud’homme explained. “It gets really exciting – a classroom can choose to try and complete the entire selection of activities, or just three or four.”
Another exciting component of Literacy Month is an upcoming virtual visit with Laurelle Harwood, a Métis author from the Calgary area who recently completed her first novel – Orange Cat, Grey Cat. According to Prud’homme, Harwood will read aloud from her novel, answer questions, and share the message of kindness her new book espouses over a Zoom session with students.
Prud'homme said students tend to get excited for Coopers Crossing School’s annual literacy-themed month, adding it’s great to see students so enthusiastic about such a foundational educational skillset.
“Literacy is a transferable skill in the workplace, but also just in life in general,” she said.
“It really encompasses everything in the world around us. Taking time to celebrate it and notice it helps make literacy exciting and it helps honour the students out there who love it. All the efforts in school often involve literacy, with reading and writing in particular, so it’s an opportunity for everyone to get excited, and help build that awareness and appreciation of it.”
Love of Reading Month
Over at nearby Windsong Heights School, staff are similarly promoting literacy through a series of creative initiatives and activities this February.
“Literacy learning leads to lifelong success in so many ways, so it’s something we want to build,” said Janet Bang, the school’s literacy support teacher for Kindergarten to Grade 4.
Every school day throughout the month will kick off with a “morning mystery reader,” according to Windsong Heights School’s principal, Penny Beaudry. She said a different student or staff member will be selected to read aloud a passage from a book during the morning announcements, and each classroom has the rest of the day to try and figure out who the mystery reader was, and which book they were reading.
On Feb. 1, Windsong Heights School participated in a game of “Human Scrabble,” which tasked students with donning their first initial on the front of their shirt and their last initial on the back. Students had the day to form as many words as they could by standing next to other students and snapping a photo.
“I think there will be some excitement around that,” Bang said. “I think the kids with vowels are going to be very popular.”
In other literacy-themed activities this February, Windsong Heights School staff and students will dress up as their favourite character from a novel on Feb. 10,
Bang added another initiative this month is the completion of reading Bingo cards, which students can fill out by accomplishing tasks like reading in the dark with a flash light, or reading outside of designated class reading times for at least 15 minutes.
And as an alternative to sending classroom Valentine's Day cards later this month, Bang said staff are encouraging students to exchange book marks with their classmates instead.
“We’re just trying to think of creative ways we can tie in reading with literacy and highlight it throughout the month with themes that are already present,” she said.
Bang added that Windsong Heights School’s Love of Reading Month is a great way to draw attention to the potential joys of books and literacy – something she said is particularly poignant given the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think especially through COVID and with kids being out of school, especially with our younger students missing some instruction, it can be hard for them at times,” she said. “We want to highlight that reading is joyful, that reading books in a family environment is positive.”
