Darren Campbell
Northern News Services

NNSL (Sep 18/98) - Reach them when they're young and reap the benefits.

Weledeh Catholic School is hoping to see that happen with the launch of the Reading Mentorship Program on Tuesday.

The program will see members of the Yellowknife Rotary Club become reading mentors for the 35 Grade 1 students at the school.

Each mentor will come into the school for 30 minutes each week, read to one student and also play a fun literary activity with the student.

Joanne McGrath, assistant principal at Weledeh, said the program will go on for the whole year. She said it should help improve students reading skills but also give them much needed encouragement.

"The thing you can't measure is the feeling students get when someone is interested in their progress," said McGrath.

Getting children interested in reading early can be critical to their success in school later on. Most students get to Grade 1 expecting to do well in school. But not every student succeeds. If they are not doing well at reading early on, they become anxious about reading and may even hate it.

And if this attitude continues its difficult to correct because students become unmotivated and don't believe they can learn.

McGrath said the mentorship program could change that.

"Some kids find it easy to read. Others have to preserver more," said McGrath. "But everybody needs a cheerleader."

Ric Arnold, president-elect of the Yellowknife Rotary Club helped put the program together.

He said they got involved in the program after Rotary International challenged every rotary club in the world to come up with a project that helped children, especially inner city children.

Arnold said the mentors will put in a total of 900 hours during the year. He said the program is a unique one for the rotary club because they are giving their time instead of their money.

"Traditionally we haven't done much with putting in man hours," said Arnold. "Usually we just cut the cheque and say, 'There you go.'"

That will change now and Arnold hopes they can inspire the students to improve their reading and language skills.

"If we don't get them now as time progresses they (students) get less and less interested in reading and language skills," said Arnold.