 It was a carnival atmosphere in the streets of Ancelary last week, when the Ancelary infant school staged a reading street parade, reimagining education and literacy in a different space. Principal at the school, Albert Joseph, endorsed the event and the innovativeness of the teaching staff in making learning fun. What we are doing here today, the children are bringing books to life, so it's not just about reading about characters in books, but now they are actually here bringing all those imaginary characters to life. So we have five books that are being presented today, these are the sections and of course the parents have gone all the way out to really make it a special day for the students. My character is turkey, lucky. My character is Tinkerbell. The cute factor was on full display with students enjoying the carnival atmosphere, much to the delight of onlookers from the Ancelary community. I feel excited and wonderful because this activity is happening right now, it feels so amazing. It's not just for fun, but there's a learning aspect to it, which is what education in any sense should be. Literacy coordinator Kit Popel said the activity lends itself to the current carnival season in St. Lucia, while reinforcing in the minds of students that everything can be used as a learning opportunity. So literacy should not just be kept within the four walls of the classroom, and this year the reading month theme lends itself to taking reading and literacy outside of the classroom. So the staff here, our team, we decided to select books, each class has selected a book and we have decided to get the students into costume portraying the book. After this parade, what we have here today is a parade encouraging the community to read, to take literacy out of the classroom and engage in reading online, reading newspapers, just reading generally. After this parade, we will get class presentations, each class will present the book. So we have a fun day, a day filled with excitement for the students. I must say I'm really happy that we're doing this, and I look forward to more activities such as this one. We decided to teach at the Ansler Infant School Martina Rafael Polio, encourage members of the community to support the reading pageant on June 30th. We want to bring back the togetherness, the love, the attention, the affection because it takes a village to raise a child. So we have activities like this to bring the community back together. The reading carnival was supported by the Peewees, senior students and adults of the community. They just had a reading carnival for reading month, which was amazing. I think it's a great initiative that they're doing to get the community involved, get the students on board, and the parents and continue to do the great work that you're doing. I witnessed some great activity out there, it's nice to see that the kids are promoting reading month. It's something good for the community and I hope that the message was well taken and I think that it's going to be something good for the future. There are many innovative ideas that have already come to mind for next year and I'm very grateful for the teachers, the staff of course, and of course the literacy coordinator who has made this come to life and bring it, made it a wonderful success today. For the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, Glenn Simon reported.