University to host international literacy competition

The University of Auckland is to host the World Kid’s Lit Quiz, a literature competition for children, later this year.

Teams from Australia, Canada, China, Scotland, South Africa, the US and New Zealand will compete for the world literacy title at the University’s Owen G Glenn Building on 4 July.

Kid’s Lit Quiz finalists will be officially welcomed to the University with a pōwhiri on the Tūtahi Tonu marae at The Faculty of Education’s Epsom campus. After competing in the final, teams will travel to Hobbiton in Matamata to see the Lord of the Rings set, visit Rangitoto Island to witness the setting for Maurice Gee’s fantasy adventure Under the Mountain, and watch a presentation of Margaret Mahy’s book, The Great Piratical Rumbustificaton. Popular New Zealand authors Maria Gill, Des Hunt and Stu Duval will also talk with finalists about their books and writing.

The Kids' Lit Quiz, an annual literature competition for children aged 10 to 13, is the brainchild of Wayne Mills, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Education.

“This age group is a critical period for young readers. Reading for pleasure can drop-off as students get older and are required to do so much directed reading for their studies. If we capture them now then we can set a pattern for the future.”

Mr Mills compiles all the questions and hosts all the national and international quiz events. No quiz is ever the same. Each heat and final has 10 questions in 10 different categories, from visual literature, comics and nursery rhymes to questions on fish, folktales and royalty.

Mr Mills established the Kids’ Lit Quiz competition more than 20 years ago. The first quiz held in Hamilton included just 14 Waikato teams. “I was frustrated that young students were encouraged to compete in sports, science and maths but not reading,” he says. “I never saw kids being rewarded for reading and I wanted to make it fun, interactive and challenging.”

Mr Mills says he never envisioned the quiz would become so popular. “I always thought that it would be nice to have this competition in New Zealand but never imagined it would strike such a global chord,” says Mr Mills.

By 2020 he hopes to have twenty countries competing in the programme which is run entirely by volunteers and funded through the generosity of sponsors.

The New Zealand team to compete at the world final is yet to be decided. Over the next three months students from more than two hundred and fifty schools throughout New Zealand will be putting their literary knowledge to the test in the regional heats which will culminate in the national final held at the Parliament Buildings in Wellington on 14 June.

As quizmaster Mr Mills will probe contestants’ knowledge on anything from The Iliad and The Odyssey to Spongebob Squarepants and the classics. There is no set reading list for the quiz, “as soon as you do this” he says “it becomes a test in disguise and kids love the fact that there are no limits and that it’s a genuine challenge of their literary knowledge.”

Mr Mills was awarded the Margaret Mahy Medal in 2008 for his contribution to children’s literature and literacy. Last year he received the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Education, specifically for his contribution to the Kids’ Lit Quiz.

To enter a team in the New Zealand regional heats and for more information about forthcoming regional heats, the national and world final, visit www.kidslitquiz.com.