Kent Driscoll
Northern News Services

Sanikiluaq (Oct 17/05) - The gymnasium at the Nuiyak school in Sanikiluaq was transformed into one of the biggest reading rooms in Nunavut on Oct 5.

To celebrate Literacy Week, students were rounded up and sent to the gym to read, listen and compete.

The gym was packed with 350 students, teachers and parents. Nunavut schools were in competition with the Northwest Territories, to see which could bring out the most readers.

The Nuiyak school takes literacy seriously. Some classes have silent reading periods to start or end the day. There is a reading buddy program, where older kids go to the younger grades to read with their schoolmates.

With almost every student in the school having Inuktitut as a first language, teachers have to do some creative editing.

They get a lot of Inuktitut books, but many are in a different dialect than the one spoken in Sanikiluaq. The teachers translate the books, and paste in text that suits the region.

To end the week, there was an assembly on Oct. 7, with reading games. The students were asked to identify an Inuktitut letter and write it out; and it was more difficult depending on the age of the competitor.

Each student was able to pick what they wanted to read.

"They like the stories about animals, the young kids especially," said teacher Tim Hoyt.

The school isn't just home to readers, it is home to writers as well. Nuiyak school teacher Caroline Iqaluq is a published author of a children's book.