Islanders celebrate reading Friday with more to come this weekend

Celebrations of reading and writing all week at P.E.I. schools for Family Literacy Day Sunday are being capped off with events at Island libraries.

Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. the Montague Rotary Library will have a read-in that will feature storytimes, sensory play,face painting, puppet showsand more.

Friday, students at West Kent Elementary School in Charlottetown were encouraged to dress like their favourite book character, and many students eagerly joined in, dressing as hockey players, Anne of Green Gables, PippiLongstocking, Dr. Seuss characters and more.

"The students almost everybody was really dressed up and excited and enthusiastic and it was neat to see," said Julie Lynch, a Grade 3 teacher at West Kent Elementary who dressed up as Bob the Builder.

Audrey Bird dressed as Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter book series there were several wizards from the books in the classroom.

"Harry Potter is a very, very, very popular book series," she said about her choice.

"I think any opportunity you have to get children reading books, talking about books, enthusiastic about books, and sharing some of that conversation about book characters, it becomes a little bit of a contagious aspect, everybody wants to hear more," said Lynch.

Students at Donagh Regional had a winter literacy celebration including a snowman book character contest, a family photo display and a dress as your favourite book character day too. And Morell Consolidatedplanned a reading celebration Friday.

The provincial government encouraged parents to support their children'slearning by making reading and writing a family activity and visiting local libraries.

More P.E.I. news