‘We love reading’ gaining momentum among children in Vizianagaram district

Under this programme, schools distribute storybooks on morals and biographies to students before the summer vacation. Each teacher has to create a WhatsApp group with 25 students and monitor their day-to-day reading.

Chadavadam maku istam (We love reading), a drive for promoting reading habit among children during the summer holidays, is slowly gaining momentum in Vizinaagaram district.

The Andhra Pradesh government launched the programme on November 12, 2020, to improve the reading skills of the State’s children, which were lower compared with national standards. The government also observed that a majority of the teachers focussed only on completing syllabi and marks of the students.

Under this programme, schools distribute storybooks on morals and biographies to students before the summer vacation. Each teacher has to create a WhatsApp group with 25 students and monitor their day-to-day reading. Students read out the stories, record them and post them on the group. They should also write a small review in their own words. This was aimed at improving their writing skills as well.

Though some schools took the programme seriously, some are yet to do so. Vizianagaram Collector Nagalakshmi Selvarajan told The Hindu that all the schools had been directed to focus on the campaign since the students should develop proficiency in English as well. “Many rural students opted English-medium [education] over the last couple of years. Reading habit will make them understand the pronunciation and meaning of difficult words. Teachers can monitor the performance of the students through video calls and WhatsApp postings. All headmasters have to monitor the campaign,” said Ms. Nagalakshmi.

The programme is reportedly being implemented effectively in rural areas such as Gajapathinagaram, Gantyada, Denkada, Bhogapuram and other mandals. When contacted, Gantyada Zilla Parishad High School headmistress Alamanda Jhansi told The Hindu that the students were responding positively to the book-reading programme.  

“Reading at leisure always ensures fun and knowledge for the children. They understand the importance of courage, honesty, hard-work, helping nature and others by reading books such as the Panchatantra tales. A book bank has also been created in our school. We have already developed in the students the habit of reading those stories aloud in classrooms. We have told them to do the same at their home as well during the summer vacation. The students are being encouraged to exchange the books with friends so that they will be able to read more stories over the next four weeks,” said Ms. Jhansi.