NEWCASTLE students are turning the pages to implement better reading habits as part of the 2024 NSW Premier's Reading Challenge.
Reading anywhere from 10 to 20 books, the challenge aims to encourage a love of reading in students from kindergarten to year 10 across all government, independent and Catholic schools.
Newcastle High School year 9 student and self-proclaimed bookworm Hannah Holmes, says she adores reading and was looking forward to the challenge.
"I use reading as a means of an escape, I enjoy classic fantasy and a bit of horror," she said.
"I'm excited [for the challenge] it's going to be a great way to branch out and try new, different genres I wouldn't normally read."
She said she reads almost every day, often hopping into bed with a good book and encouraged her peers to get involved.
Reading is at the forefront of education in the country with a recent report identifying one in three Australian school children can't read proficiently.
Newcastle High School teacher librarian, Elisabeth Porreca-Dubois, said the school had implemented a reading program with great success and welcomed the challenge.
"Any initiative or incentive that we can offer students to encourage them to participate in reading I think, is a bit of a winner," she said.
She said the framework of the challenge allows students to widen their reading experiences and engage with different genres and authors.
This year's challenge was officially launched with an event at Newcastle High School on Monday, February 26.
Local author-illustrator Sami Bayly was a guest speaker and invited to share her processes around technical drawing and writing with year 7, 8 and 9 students. She also created the illustration for the 2024 NSW Premier's Reading Challenge Poster.
"I made a watercolour illustration of a bunch of the animals based on previous author and illustrators books, and I had created little Easter eggs in the poster. I wanted to teach you kids the process of how I made the poster and have them draw a yellow tail black cockatoo carrying a book," she said.
She said it was important for children of all ages to be reading and she knows it can be harder as it gets older.
Last year there were only 20 per cent of high school students reading in the challenge.
"I know how challenging it gets the older you get because you have more things on your plate but initiatives like this help push kids to be activating their brains by choosing these fantastic books and expanding their knowledge," she said.
The program is run within English lessons with the support of English teachers and occurs within the first 10 minutes of each lesson and had a "drop everything and read" style approach.
