With her support, encouragement, and sponsorship, Hope Decker, a library director at Wayland Free Library and 2023 KEY Workshop facilitator, helped KEY launch in 2024 its first school reading program in early 2024, inspiring students’ reading and learning habits. Run during school terms, the program promotes a reading culture by enhancing literacy and critical thinking. Students read and review books, while schools track weekly circulation to monitor engagement.
Students are encouraged to read widely across genres and complete book reports, which KEY’s team reviews for comprehension and critical thinking. This helps track literacy progress while rewarding top readers with prizes to boost participation (pencils, sharpeners, pens, rulers, geometry sets, dictionaries, pencil cases, backpacks). Weekly circulation stats reveal reading trends, helping KEY and librarians understand students’ reading levels, interests, and needs. This allows them to offer better guidance: recommending books, supporting progress through reading levels, and identifying gaps to be addressed.
Kapchorwa Primary students receiving prizes for reading the most books, across the widest range, and for the best reviews.
The reading program has deepened community engagement by linking multiple KEY school libraries in a shared literacy effort. It’s also boosted student interaction with librarians, teachers, and library resources, as students increasingly seek guidance on books that match their interests or support skill-building. Over the course of 2024, KEY has also seen growing engagement from librarians and teacher-librarians, who are actively inquiring about how to participate, what genres or resources qualify for awards, and enthusiastically recommending a wider range of books to their students. By Term 2, many librarians had expanded their focus to include more diverse genres available in their libraries, challenging both themselves and their learners to explore new reading territories.
Muskut Primary, KEY Container Library
The first batch of schools to participate in the program during the first school term of 2024 included six schools, each with a KEY library: Precious Blood Secondary School, Mulwanda Secondary School, Chebisian Primary School, Lewa Primary School, Muskut Primary School, and Kapchorwa Primary School. All successfully enrolled in the program and recognized their top five readers. The initiative in these schools continues in 2025 to improve student literacy, writing skills, and reading enjoyment, while promoting a strong reading culture. It has also sparked wider student interest in diverse book categories—ranging from fiction and biography to science and history, demonstrating the growing appeal of reading across genres. Participation continues to rise, even though the program is voluntary. As KEY Libraries remains committed to expanding access to literacy resources, we look forward to growing this initiative and welcoming more schools into the program in the coming terms. Together, we can empower young learners through the joy of reading.
Due to the program’s popularity and impact, participation expanded from 6 schools in Term 1 to 17 KEY library schools in Term 2 of 2024. This rising engagement, despite the program being voluntary for both students and schools, highlights its strong appeal and growing relevance in promoting literacy and lifelong learning.