Visit gets students fired up about books

River Valley Primary School was visited on Tuesday by representatives of the Paint the Town REaD reading movement on their way from one side of Australia to the other.

According to executive director Barbie Bates, 20 per cent of Australian children arrived at school not ready for learning, and the idea of the movement was to engage communities in reading to children from birth.

“It doesn’t matter how good the subsequent teaching is, if they don’t have those early literacy skills when they arrive at school, they’re going to struggle with reading probably for the rest of their lives,” she said.

“The amount of words a child knows by the time they’re 18-months old is an indicator as to how well they’re going to read.”

The school was invited to host the movement on its way through the South West by the Dardanup Shire Council, something principal Vanessa Rodda was all too happy to do.

“We’re in our new business cycle and our top priority is reading,” she said.

“We want kids to be excited about reading ... goal achieved!”

Shire president Mick Bennett welcomed the representatives to the school and shire as they made their way through the South West, having previously visited Dunsborough before heading to Rockingham that day.