Monday 21st September marked a major milestone for East End Primary School as they officially launched their Home Reading Programme, a first for East End Primary School. Minister of Education, Honourable Tara Rivers, joined the students, staff, members of the community and other distinguished guests in celebrating this special occasion.

East End’s Home Reading Programme was made possible by a very generous donation from local company, Genesis Trust, demonstrating the positive impact of public-private partnerships. Literacy Is For Everyone (LIFE) assisted the school in finding Genesis Trust as their partner to sponsor this endeavour. Mr. Paul Drake, Managing Director, and Mr. Roger Priaulx, Director, funded the resources to start the home reading programme, including over 1,300 fiction and non-fiction books of varying levels, take-home book bags, and reading rewards. “It is with sincerest gratitude that we thank our sponsor, Genesis Trust, for their contribution to East End Primary. With their help, our students now have the opportunity to engage in daily reading at home, which will support the continual development of their literacy skills and foster a lifelong love for reading and learning,” stated E.E.P.S. Principal, Ms. Allison Wallace.

“Daily reading is critical to ongoing literacy development and having access to quality children’s literature, as we now have as part of the Home Reading Programme, will benefit our students immensely,” said Ms. Jessica Jackson, the school’s Literacy Coach and initiator of the programme. “Research shows that children who spend time engaged with books have more developed vocabularies, knowledge of spelling, verbal fluency and reading comprehension skills and a wider knowledge of the world around them,” she continued.

During Monday’s assembly, students were bursting with excitement as they waited in great anticipation to visit the Home Reading Library to browse and select a book to take home for the very first time. Students and staff also publicly thanked representatives from Genesis Trust and were treated to a read aloud by the Minister of Education of The Little Engine that Could. Following the read aloud, the Honourable Tara Rivers also took part in the school’s “Book It Forward” campaign, explaining to students why her favourite children’s story is The Little Engine that Could. The “Book It Forward” initiative, created by Youtube child phenomenon, Kid President, encourages readers to tell others about their favourite book, spreading the love of reading and is one action of the school’s overarching goal of creating a reading culture.

“It was a pleasure to take part in the East End Primary School’s launch of their Home Reading Programme and having the opportunity to ‘Book It Forward’,” stated the Honourable Tara Rivers. “Having resources available for our students to engage in reading on a daily basis helps to provide a good foundation to build a culture of readers and lifelong learners. Establishing Home Reading Programmes at all Government Schools is also a goal set out in the Cayman Islands’ Teaching and Learning Strategy 2015-2019 that will positively impact student learning. I’m very pleased that East End Primary School has already accomplished this goal.”

Photo & Caption:

Marilyn Connolly (Executive Director of LIFE), Roger Priaulx (Director of Genesis Trust), Hon. Tara Rivers (Minister of Education), Mr. Arden McLean (Elected Member for East End), Jonathan Hawkes (Genesis Trust Employee) in East End Primary School’s Home Reading Library.