More than 74,000 children and young people took part in the 2022 Premiers’ Reading Challenge.
Education Minister Natalie Hutchins congratulated the readers, who smashed through a total of 2.9 million books.
Now in its 18th year, the Challenge encourages avid readers across schools, households and early childhood centres, including in Whittlesea and Hume, to read a set number of books over the year and to record their progress online.
“Reading is one of the most important skills our children and young people can learn from an early age and the Premiers’ Reading Challenge is a fantastic way of encouraging this,” Ms Hutchins said.
“Congratulations to every child and young person – along with their parents and carers – who signed up for this year’s Challenge and discovered a new chapter to enjoy.”
This year’s theme was ‘Discover a new chapter’. Children below school age were asked to read 40 books with their parents or carers,
children from Prep to year 2 to read 30 books with or without assistance, and students in years three to 10 to read 15 books.
The booklist was varied with a range of titles for each age group to select, curated by a panel including teachers and librarians.
“Since the Premiers’ Reading Challenge began in 2005, more than 4 million children and young people have read 57 million books,” a government statement said.
‘The Challenge also compliments Victoria’s excellent 2021 NAPLAN results, which clearly showed the lift in the number of top performing primary school students in reading since 2015.
“Each participant who meets the Challenge receives a certificate of achievement signed by the Premier.”
