The Great Reading Competition 2023

A high-quality performance and reading by eighteen students

The final festival of the Grand Reading Competition in Hafnarfjörður was held in Víðistaðakirkja yesterday, attended by representatives from the town's primary schools, relatives and guests. Preparations for the festival have been underway since the Day of the Icelandic Language on 16th November, and yesterday, the hard work and rich results were celebrated with a fine and beautiful reading and the polished performance of eighteen pupils from the 7th grades of Hafnarfjörður's primary schools. All of Hafnarfjörður's primary schools send representatives to the competition, with two from each school.

Cultivating the Icelandic language through training and quality recitation.

This year, eighteen students from nine schools took to the stage and performed excerpts from the novel Blokkin á heimsenda and poems by the competition's poets, who this time were Arndís Þórarinsdóttir, Hulda Sigrún Bjarnadóttir and Aðalsteinn Ásberg Sigurðsson. All the students received a certificate and gifts for their performance, and encouragement and congratulations from the President of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson. Rósu Guðbjartsdóttur, the Mayor, and Aðalsteinn Ásberg Sigurðsson, the competition's poet, all of whom honoured the group with their presence. The judging panel ultimately selected three students from the excellent group of representatives and awarded them special recognition. This year, the winners were Karen Hrönn Guðjónsdóttir from Áslandsskóli (1st place), Soffía Karen Björnsdóttir from Hraunvallaskóli (2nd place), and Reynir Örn Sigrúnarson from Setbergsskóli (3rd place). This year's judging panel consisted of Björk Einisdóttir, chair of the panel, Almar Blær Sigurjónsson, Hafrún Dóra Júlíusdóttir and Þórður Helgason. Pupils in Year 4 and participants in the 2023 Junior Speech Competition performed as a talking choir, one of the hallmarks of the competition. Raddir, an association for quality reading and presentation, organises the Little Reading Competition, which is a spin-off project from the Big Reading Competition for Year 4 pupils in primary schools. It shares the same underlying goals and purpose as the Big Competition, but with a different approach.

Here are the students who received special recognition, together with the headteachers.

Recognition for prize-winning drawings and short stories

At the festival, awards were presented for a short story competition and a competition for the poster design for the closing ceremony. Aldís María Antonsdóttir, a Year 6 pupil at Hraunvallaskóli, received an award for the winning drawing on the invitation card, as it is pupils in the town's Year 6s who are eligible to take part in the competition. In the short story competition for years 8 to 10, it was pupils from Víðistaðaskóli who took the top three places: Amra Bajramovska from year 9 was the winner, Helena Björg S. Arnarsdóttir in Year 9 for second place, and Sunna Björk Magnúsdóttir in Year 9 for third.

It started as a pilot project 27 years ago.

The Great Reading Competition, which began as a pilot project on reading in Hafnarfjörður during the winter of 1996-1997, has grown and strengthened considerably over the years and has also been held nationwide for some time. Raddir, an association for quality reading and presentation, ran the competition for 25 years, but for the last two years, the competition has been organised by the local authorities and the school community in each area. In Hafnarfjörður, the school community still benefits from the professional assistance of Ingibjörg Einarsdóttir, the founder of the Stóra upplestrarkeppnin in Iceland, who is still responsible for the final ceremony at Víðistaðakirkja.

Representatives of Hafnarfjörður's primary schools 2023:

1. Agnes Sigríður Magnúsdóttir from Áslandsskóli
2. Reynir Örn Sigrúnarson from Setbergsskóli
3. Karítas Ýr Ingimundardóttir from Engidalsskóli
4. Hrefna Dís Valgeirsdóttir from Skarðshlíðarskóli
5. Sólveig Eva Hannes daughter from Lækjarskóli
6. Arney Sif Zomers from Víðistaðaskóli
7. Theodor Elvis Ólafsson from Hraunvallar School
8. Elísa Axelsdóttir from Hvaleyrarskóli
9. Fjóla Huld Daðadóttir from Öldutúnsskóli
10. Karen Hrönn Guðjónsdóttir from Áslandsskóli
11. Guðrún Ragnarsdóttir from Víðistaðaskóli
12. Stefanía Vala Rósardóttir from Engidalsskóli
13. Berglind Snædísar Sólveigardóttir from Hvaleyrarskóli
14. Baldur Freyr Kristinsson from Skarðshlíðarskóli
15. Katrín Líf Sigurðardóttir from Setbergs School
16. Snæfríður Brynja Bendtsen from Lækjarskóli
17. Sofía Karen Björnsdóttir from Hraunvallaskóli
18. Benedikt Helgi Guðmundsson from Öldutúnsskóli