Evandale students finish 2471 book reading challenge with 'paper chain'

Receiving a strip of paper for every book they read - where they worte their name, the book and the date - the students were working towards the goal of "reading the length" of their school's 145-metre driveway.

At the end of term three on Friday, September 29, more than 130 Evandale students - from kindergarten through grade six - linked their pieces of paper together.

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Inspired by the Premier's Reading Challenge and Book Week, teachers at the school cooked up the paper chain challenge to inspire their students with a physical representation of their mental efforts.

"We want kids to read a lot, because we know that it improves literacy, particularly older children who often stop their home reading once school programs end," said Andrea Harlow, Evandale's support teacher.

"We did an inquiry together as a staff about what we could do to combat that and decided, let's have the kid's try and reach the end of the driveway through reading."

Over the 10 weeks, the Evandale students read 2471 books in what the teachers said was an enormous improvement, particularly for their older cohort.

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"For students who think, home reading is for little kids, this has increased their reading enormously and we're excited about how it will form a habit for the future," Ms Harlow said.

Students stretched out the paper chain from the school's office to its Barclays Street entrance to end term three, in a display of organised chaos which ended with cheers having met its goal.

Grade four student Darci McLean said the idea encouraged her to read and open her mind.

"It just really helped people that don't reach much see that reading is fun," she said.

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Another student, Quinn Briede, who is in grade six, read around 35 books during the challenge and said he felt a sense of accomplishment seeing the final chain.

"I think I'll keep reading afterwards; I really like it," he said.

And Quinn had a little extra incentive: his grade six class hosted an internal competition aside from the paper chain, where the group which read the most books earned themselves a pizza.

Quinn's class enjoyed their delicious victory slices.

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