Although they didn’t get to physically travel to the Australian Outback or to the Amazon River, students at St. Michael’s School here got to travel to faraway lands—and live through a challenge over the last nine months just like contestants on the popular reality TV show, “Survivor.”
The students—88 in all—used their imaginations to travel to exotic places and learn about the world around them while unwittingly promoting literacy.
The “Library Survivor” program at St. Michael’s had closer links to the TV show than one might expect.
“Actually, I was watching ‘Survivor’ on TV and it was one of their challenges,” noted St. Michael’s librarian Kathy Mercure.
She explained contestants on the show had a story told to them and they had to remember details using memory recall. Mercure took the idea and adjusted it for the students at the school.
She had a shelf of books of all varieties in the library designated for the program (about 80-100 in all). The younger students read books like “Clifford the Big Red Dog” while the older ones read books by authors like Robert Munch and even chapter books designed for their reading level.
“The kids were to read the designated library books,” Mercure said, adding that once they had completed a book, they would go to the library for the memory recall portion of the “game.”
“They would roll the dice and answer questions to get points,” she noted.
Mercure said the questions would correspond to numbers 1 through 5 on the die while 6 was the “Library Survivor”—allowing students to choose which question to answer.
Each correct answer was worth one point, with students being allowed to answer a maximum of two questions per book.
Students in Grades 1-3 signed up for the library program back in September in teams of four (there were a total of 22 teams). Then last Friday, they were praised for their efforts and the winners honoured.
The top reader was Gavin Moorhouse, a Grade 3 student who read more than 50 books and earned a total of 91 points—37 better than the next closest individual competitor.
Second place went to Maureen Gustafson with 54 points while third went to Rikki Kellar (47).
In the team category, the “Tigers”—featuring Moorhouse, Bryce Knapp, Matthew Watson, and Jackson Coran—earned a staggering 183 points to win the top prize.
Second place went to the “Prairie Dogs” with 114 points and third to the “River Otters” (91).
The winning team received plaques and certificates for participating in the program. They also received a copy of the book “As Long as the Rivers Flow,” by Larry Loyie—a local author who now lives in British Columbia—and illustrated by Heather Holmlund, an artist originally from Fort Frances.
The program turned out to be a big success.
“It was just to get them interested in reading in a fun way,” said Mercure, adding she was surprised by the sustained level of interest in the program.
“[Learned] reading is fun sometimes,” admitted Moorhouse. “I used to hate reading until ‘Survivor.’
“My dad would say: ‘Why won’t you pick up a book?’”
Now Moorhouse is excited to read his next book.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
