Models in Icelandic Language Advancement

The Great Reading Competition celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

The Great Reading Competition celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. The competition has grown and strengthened considerably over the years and is now held nationwide. The final event of the Grand Reading Competition in Hafnarfjörður was held in Víðistaðakirkja yesterday, attended by representatives from the town's primary schools, along with pupils' relatives and guests. This remarkable competition begins each year on the Day of the Icelandic Language on 16 November and concludes in March with the recognition of three students in each community who are deemed to be the best among their peers.  

^{Here are the students who took the top places, along with the headteachers of their schools. Sigurður Ísak Hlynsson at Hraunvallaskóli with headteacher Lars Jóhann Imsland, and Rán Þórarinsdóttir and Lilja Dís Hjörleifsdóttir at Setbergsskóli with headteacher María Pálmadóttir.}

A professional and beautiful reading by sixteen students

All of Hafnarfjörður's primary schools send representatives to the competition, with two from each school. At the festival, sixteen students from the 7th grades of the primary schools took to the stage and performed excerpts from a work of fiction by Bergrún Íris Sævarsdóttir and a poem by Kristján frá Djúpalæk, who are this year's competition poets. All the students received a certificate and gifts for their performance, and encouragement and congratulations from the President of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson. Minister of Education Lilja Alfreðsdóttir, Mayor Rósa Guðbjartsdóttir, and Bergrún Íris Sævarsdóttir, the competition's poet and Hafnarfjörður's Artist in Residence for 2020, all honoured the group with their presence. The judging panel ultimately selected the three best speakers and awarded them special recognition. They were Rán Þórarinsdóttir from Setbergsskóli (1st place), Lilja Dís Hjörleifsdóttir from Setbergsskóli (2nd place) and Sigurður Ísak Hlynsson (3rd place). at Hraunvallaskóli, who were deemed the best of the best this year. This year's judging panel consisted of Anna Þorbjörg Ingólfsdóttir, Björk Einisdóttir (chair of the panel), Almar Blær Sigurjónsson and Birgir Örn Guðjónsson. Pupils from the Hafnarfjörður Music School performed, giving a beautiful instrumental performance, and pupils in Year 4 and participants in the 2021 Junior Spelling Bee also came forward as the talking choir, one of the hallmarks of the Junior Spelling Bee.

^{The President of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, Minister of Education Lilja Alfreðsdóttir and the Mayor of Hafnarfjörður, Rósa Guðbjartsdóttir, honoured the group with their presence.} 

Awards for artwork and short stories

At the festival, awards were presented for a short story competition for pupils in Years 9 to 11, and for a competition to design the poster for the closing ceremony. Kolbrún Garðarsdóttir, a Year 11 pupil at Hraunvallaskóli, won first prize for her story. Snowflakes that take their time and Marta Björnsdóttir at Öldutúnsskóli for the story, second place Lois. Elísa Lana Sigurjónsdóttir at Víðistaðaskóli with the story With life at stake and Elísa Kristín Böðvarsdóttir at Skarðshlíðarskóli with the story Flateyri finished joint third. Eyrún Guðmundsdóttir, a student at Lækjarskóli, received an award for her artwork on the final festival invitation, but every year, students in the sixth grade of the schools take part in a competition for the invitation.

It's not about being the first to finish.

The Great Reading Competition is not about being the first to the finish line, but about training and perfecting one's reading. Ingibjörg Einarsdóttir, the founder of the Great Reading Competition, has overseen the competition since its inception, 25 years ago, developing and shaping it in active collaboration with, among others, local authorities and the school community in each locality. The Stóra Upplestrarkeppnin began as a pilot project on reading in Hafnarfjörður during the winter of 1996-1997, but it quickly developed into a nationwide project run by the association Röddum, an organisation for quality reading and public speaking. This year is the last year that Raddir and the pioneer, Ingibjörg, will be in charge of the competition and the festival, and Ingibjörg received thanks and best wishes at yesterday's awards ceremony. From now on, the event will be run by the municipalities themselves. Raddir will continue to run the Little Reading Competition, a growing spin-off from the Big Reading Competition for pupils in Year 4 of primary schools, which has the same aim but a different approach. At their core, both competitions are about nurturing the warm Icelandic language through training and quality recitation.