Eastern Cape school children will be encouraged to drop everything and simply read as provincial schools take part in National Reading Week, to be held at schools’ convenience sometime in September.
The Readathon, run jointly by the Department of Education (DoE) and Read Educational Trust, is in its 21st year, and aims to bring back the culture of reading into schools. Its goal is to encourage learners to read for enjoyment, outside their school curriculum. “Our focus with National Reading Week is for learners to have fun while reading,” said Dr Elna Barnard, of the Eastern Cape DoE.
Eastern Cape school children will be encouraged to drop everything and simply read as provincial schools take part in National Reading Week, to be held at schools’ convenience sometime in September.
The Readathon, run jointly by the Department of Education (DoE) and Read Educational Trust, is in its 21st year, and aims to bring back the culture of reading into schools. Its goal is to encourage learners to read for enjoyment, outside their school curriculum. “Our focus with National Reading Week is for learners to have fun while reading,” said Dr Elna Barnard, of the Eastern Cape DoE.
National Reading Week is usually in the first week of September, however, this year schools will be responsible for their own planning. The department did not specify the week seeing as schools are busy with revision and examination activities, but schools are required to inform the department when their Readathon activities will take place so it can support them.
To assist the schools, the provincial DoE sent out a list of possible readathon activities which range from puppet shows, story telling, recitals of poems and rhymes, spelling games and quizzes. Schools can choose to read in English, Afrikaans or isiXhosa, depending on the resources available. “We encourage schools to come to us if they need resources for reading,” said Barnard.
During the time period specified by the school, learners drop what they are doing and read. It’s a competition to see how many books each learner reads. Teachers are instructed to keep a record of how many pages are read. After their respective Reading Weeks, each group of schools is to get together and showcase what they have done.
National Reading Week is part of a larger reading programme observed by the Ministry of Basic Education. In March there is National Library Week and in April World Book Day takes place.
