|
October 5, 2009
Naperville, IL – Nicor is delighted to announce the return of Super Reader and the Adventures in Reading with Nicor program. Adventures in Reading with Nicor will launch during National Book Month at three schools to encourage students to read and help provide additional training to teachers and parents.
As October is National Book Month, Adventures in Reading with  Nicor will help begin the school year with participating school’s K-3rd grade students. The students will get a visit from Nicor’s costumed super hero – Super Reader – who will kick-off the program at an assembly where he will personally encourage the students to also become “super readers.” By participating in the Adventures in Reading with Nicor program, students will receive free age-appropriate books and prizes while teachers and parents benefit from free training sessions.
Adventures in Reading with Nicor is a unique reading program designed to foster a life-long love of reading among children through a five-pronged approach:
- Providing free books to students and their parents
- Presenting professional development training for teachers
- Offering special coaching sessions for parents
- Contributing motivational prizes and activities
- Providing volunteers - Nicor employees - to read to the children and help facilitate the program activities
Adventures in Reading with Nicor launched in 2006 and has distributed nearly 16,000 books to approximately 5,300 Illinois students. By the end of the program’s third year, participating students had read more than 120,000 books!
“Having the Adventures in Reading with Nicor program begin during National Book Month is an excellent way to introduce the importance of reading to these young students. The most recent results from our program indicate students are reading on average more than 20 books a year," said Claudia Colalillo, Senior Vice President Human Resources and Corporate Philanthropy. “We are so proud of the students’ reading accomplishments and we are also pleased that our Adventures in Reading with Nicor program is achieving its goal to help encourage children to read.”
Beyond the free books, development training, and motivational prizes, students are ecstatic to see and meet Super Reader, a Nicor-created super hero character who has traveled light years for the sole purpose of encouraging students to read.
Super Reader returns from the planet Lexicon during National Book Month to visit three schools, Cicero West Elementary in Cicero, Zenon J. Sykuta School in Country Club Hills, and Smith School in Aurora. During his visits Super Reader will kick off the school events by sharing his story of how he became a "super reader," and he will help Nicor volunteers distribute free books and prizes to students. Prior to his appearance there will be a life-sized cutout of Super Reader available at the schools, so the students who complete a reading scorecard can place their faces in the cutout and pose for pictures as Super Reader's apprentice.
“Year after year I hear young students tell me how they read as many books as they can so that they too can be a “super reader,” continued Colalillo. I see first hand how they anticipate Super Reader’s arrival and then burst into applause and excitement when he arrives. Super Reader has become more than a costumed super hero, he is a positive role model for reading and he truly encourages students.”
To implement the Adventures in Reading with Nicor program, Nicor has partnered with three schools in its service territory to support local Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) programs. The largest non-profit literacy group in the United States, RIF has been developing and implementing programs to help encourage children to read since 1966.
Each of the schools participating in the Adventures in Reading with Nicor program will host three book distributions per school year. At each distribution, students will have the opportunity to select a book of their choice (Spanish language books are available). Prior to Super Reader arriving at the schools for the initial book distribution, the students are presented with a reading scorecard that gets them started on the program. Once students have read a book, they review it by filling out the scorecard and submitting the completed scorecards for a chance to win a prize at the book distributions.
For information on Reading Is Fundamental, visit www.rif.org.
Nicor Inc. (NYSE: GAS) is a holding company and is a member of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Its primary business is Nicor Gas, one of the nation’s largest natural gas distribution companies. Nicor owns Tropical Shipping, a containerized shipping business serving the Caribbean region and the Bahamas. In addition, the company owns and has an equity interest in several energy-related businesses. For more information, visit the Nicor Web site at www.nicor.com. | 
