by Jackie Barber
We’re only a third of the way through 2024, but I think I have already finished one of my programming highlights of the year: the Reading Link Challenge!
Reading Link Challenge, RLC for short, is a province-wide trivia competition for Grade 4 and 5 students, who are split up into teams and provided with a set of six books to read. This year we were very fortunate to have received a Community Investment Program grant from the Nelson and District Credit Union, which covered the financial cost of purchasing the book sets that the schools get to keep for future use.
Last week the winning teams from Rosemont, Hume, South Nelson, Brent Kennedy, and Redfish Elementary Schools travelled to Trafalgar Middle School to compete in the final district championship. All 162 participating students crammed in to the school library to cheer on their classmates and we were welcomed with a greeting by Trafalgar principal Mr. Mushumanski.
This year’s winning team are The Dust Bunnies from South Nelson Elementary School, who made a sweeping victory, answering every question correctly. I sat down with teammates Silvie Felton, Matthew Johnston, Freddie Spencer, Anona Lowe, Talia Shoniker, and Grace Knight to pick their brains about their RLC experience. Below is an excerpt from our conversation:
What was your favourite thing about the RLC?
Silvie: “It was fun to answer quizzes. I like quizzes.”
Talia: “It was a fun activity to read all the books and to work as a team.”
Grace: “I liked having a goal to reach and to be able to achieve something I could be proud of after.”
How did you prepare for today? How many of the six books did you read?
Matthew: “We all read all of the books.”
Anona: “Well, we read at least five ourselves, because our teacher read Linked [by Gordon Korman] out loud to our class.”
Did you have a favourite book? What did you like about it?
Silvie: “Peter Lee’s Notes from the Field [by Angela Ahn] because I liked reading how he found his passion in drawing, but everything he learned was because he first liked paleontology. I also liked how the family was kind.”
Matthew: “Astrid the Unstoppable [by Maria Parr] because it is a really good story and I liked the detail in it.”
Freddie: “J.D. and the Great Barber Battle [by J. Dillard] because it was the funnest and shortest.”
Anona: “Because of the Rabbit [by Cynthia Lord] because it reminded me of my pet rabbit, Daisy.”
Talia: “Linked [by Gordon Korman] because it was about the importance of friendship and helping people even when they are only sort of friends.”
Grace: “J.D. because it had a lot of action and I like to read about people’s big ideas and dreams.”
Wow, it’s great that almost every book has someone who claims it as their favourite, but what about Upside Down Magic [by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle & Emily Jenkins]? That might have been my favourite.
All: “We already read Upside Down Magic before the competition and watched the movie.”
Talia: “It was so different in the movie.”
Anona: “The book was way better than the movie.”
What have you learned about teamwork from participating in the RLC? How does the team make you a better reader?
Silvie: “We started as a team but ended as friends.”
Grace: “We didn’t bug each other, we worked together, and it was nice to have that kind of connection.”
Would you describe yourself as a big reader before the RLC? Has the challenge made you more excited about reading?
Matthew: “I was forced to read the books, but it led to me liking reading more. I read a lot more books now than before the challenge. It’s really fun.”
Freddie: “Winning [the school level challenge] made me more confident and I wanted to start to read more books so I could win again.”
Talia: “I was a big reader before, but [the RLC] gave me more opportunity to read more books.”
Grace: “I have always been really enthusiastic about reading but this did actually push me to get more excited and use the knowledge I get from books for another purpose.”
Anything else you would like to say to newspaper readers?
Grace: “I think this is a really fun idea and I think this challenge was a great way to make learning more fun.”
Matthew: “The Reading Link Challenge is a really fun way to read books and then the quiz was fun.”
Anona: “I hope the other teams had as much fun doing the challenge as us.”
Well, The Dust Bunnies have spoken! The Reading Link Challenge is an opportunity to work as a team, have fun, and be exposed to some really great books! A big thank you to Trafalgar Middle School for hosting such a big group, and to the Nelson and District Credit Union for financially supporting the Reading Link Challenge!
Jackie Barber is children’s services co-ordinator at the Nelson Public Library. Check This Out appears monthly.