Thousands of children and young people across Victoria have embarked on adventures in the worlds of fairytales, Harry Potter, Narnia and beyond as part of this year's Premiers' Reading Challenge.

Education Minister Natalie Hutchins has this week congratulated the more than 74,000 participants who have read a mammoth collective total of 2.9 million books.

Now in its 18^th year, the challenge encouraged avid readers to read a set number of stories over the year, while recovering their efforts online.

This year's "discover a new chapter-themed" challenge asked children below school age to read 40 books with their parents or carers, children from prep to year two to read 30 books with or without assistance and students in years three to 10 to read 15 books.

The challenge booklist has a variety of books for each age group to select, with titles curated by an expert panel including teachers and librarians.

Since the Premiers' Reading Challenge began in 2005, more than 4 million children and young people have read 57 million books.

Ms Hutchins said the challenge helped students to improve a vital skill.

"Reading is one of the most important skills our children and young people can learn from an early age and the Premiers' Reading Challenge is a fantastic way of encouraging this," she said.

"Congratulations to every child and young person - along with their parents and carers - who signed up for this year's Challenge and discovered a new chapter to enjoy."

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Each participant who meets the challenge receives a certificate of achievement signed by the Premier.

Ms Hutchins said the challenge reaps rewards citing Victoria's excellent 2021 NAPLAN results, which has shown a lift in the number of top performing primary school students in reading since 2015.

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