Flower Hill PARP a Great Success
Once a person learns the great joys associated with reading, they can experience a world in living color. Books can take a reader to far off places, exciting adventures and thrill and excite them. Flower Hill Primary School students are learning all of those lessons thanks, in part, to the PTA's Parents as Reading Partners program.
PARP is an annual event at the school, but it takes on a new meaning each winter.
"The program was a great success this year," said parent Donna Cahill who coordinated the initiative along with Maureen Starr. Students were asked to "Get Wild About Reading" and the theme carried the program a long way.
Over the course of two weeks, Flower Hill students logged in 79,615 minutes of reading or a total of 1,327 hours. "Each class was assigned a wild animal mascot and the class from each grade that read the most was awarded a prize from the teacher," Mrs. Cahill said.
At the program's awards assembly the Flower Hill youngsters were a happy bunch. There was a 21 percent increase in reading minutes from a year earlier. "Team Monkey," as teacher Anne Gordon second grade class was nicknamed in the competition, read for 7,855 minutes to lead the entire school. "That's really impressive," Flower Hill Principal Marlon Small said.
For every hour read, students were given a chance to win a raffle prize – a reusable public library bag stuffed with books. That brought a smile to the faces of many youngsters.
"Congratulations to Flower Hill students for being kings and queens of the reading jungle," Mrs. Cahill said.