More than 30 children from communities within the constituency of Montagu recently participated in the first ever Summer Reading Club, at the headquarters on Village Road. Under the theme "Making a Splash" the students, ages seven to 11, dove into books and other educational and fun activities as they worked toward enhancing their reading and writing skills.

"It is important that children continue to work on their reading and writing over the summer, so that they do not lose the skills that they learned during the school year" said Richard Lightbourn, Montagu's member of parliament. "We often hear about the big summer slide, when students, due to the lack of formal instruction, lose much of what they would have learned during the previous academic year."

Determined to keep each child in line with accepted reading standards, Lightbourn and his team, which included a reading professor, trained teachers and volunteers from the community, spared no effort in ensuring that children from every corner of the constituency had an opportunity to attend, and receive proper tutelage . In addition to the formal reading sessions, the Montagu students also participated in organized readings by some of the country's most popular names -- storyteller Greg Lampkin; on-air personality Chrissy Love; children's author Sharmane Miller and Senator Heather Hunt.

"It is extremely important that our children see that the community is interested and involved in helping them to achieve" said Lightbourn. "We must win their trust so they become more willing to give of themselves and recognize their worth. In my opinion, there is no better way to initiate this than by coming together as a group and providing them with safe and wholesome activities." Other activities that highlighted the four-week reading club were visits to Atlantis' Dolphin Cay, Chapter One Book Store and The Bahamas National Trust. On each of the visits, the young readers were given books and other reading material.

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