By Sarah Wallace

Prince Albert school library to benefit from grant

Jun 3, 2017 | 11:53 AM

A large contribution will help to encourage students to read at John Diefenbaker Public School, as they have received a $65,000 literacy grant from the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation.

Vice Principal Tammie Horan cited a demand for books as to why the school applied for the grant. She said the application involved a three-point plan for where the funding would go.

These areas were classroom libraries, the main school library and literary programming.

As each classroom has its own set of books, a portion of the grant will go towards filling out these libraries. Teachers and students will go to a local bookstore so students will have the opportunity to pick their own books.

Money from the grant will also go towards purchasing additional reading material for the main library. It will also be directed towards new shelving and to create reading centres to make reading more inviting. The centres will include things such as comfy chairs, though Horan said a majority of the money will go towards purchasing books.

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The school operates guided reading programs where groups of kids at the same reading level come together and read the same book. The grant money will purchase sets of books so there is enough for each kid.

“[With the reading programs] it might be a group of eight kids and sometimes we don’t have eight copies of a book, we only have six copies, so we really want to get a book into each child’s hand,” Horan said.

As reading has a lifelong impact on students, Horan said a grant like this can help kids who may be behind their reading level grow into stronger readers.

“This will impact students forever. Our library books currently have an average age of 22-years-old. So this is all new beautiful materials the kids and staff will get to pick out,” Horan said.

She added how the whole school is thrilled and called the grant a “huge gift.”

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid