Television to stimulate reading

• Ask your child to tell you about favorite TV characters using different kinds of words.
• As your child watches commercials on television, ask him or her to invent a product and write slogans or an ad for it.
• Encourage your child to watch such programs as Reading Rainbow. Urge older children to watch such programs as 60 Minutes and selected documentaries. These programs are informative. Discuss interesting ideas covered in the programs and direct your child to maps, encyclopedias, fiction, or popular children’s magazines for more information.
• Have your child name 10 of his or her favorite shows. Ask your child to put them into categories according to the type of show they are, such as family shows, cartoons, situation comedies, sports, science fiction, or news and information. If you find the selection is not varied enough, you might suggest a few others that would broaden experiences.
• Prepare a monthly calendar with symbols such as a picture of the sun to represent an outdoor activity or a picture of a book to represent reading. Each time your child engages in a daily free time activity, encourage him or her to paste a symbol on the correct calendar date. This will give you an idea of how your child spends his or her free time. It also encourages a varied schedule.
• Ask each child in your family to pick a different color. Using the TV listing, have each child use this color to circle one TV program that he or she wants to watch each day. Alternate who gets first choice. This serves two purposes. It limits the amount of time watching TV and it encourages discriminating viewing.
• Devise a rating scale from 1 to 5. Ask your child to give a number to a certain TV program and to explain why such a rating was given.
• Have your child keep a weekly TV log and write down five unfamiliar words heard or seen each week. Encourage your child to look up the meanings of these words in the dictionary or talk about them with you.

A word to parents

Some important ideas to consider before turning on the TV: Limit in some way the amount of TV your child watches so as to leave time for reading and other activities. Decide how much time should be set aside for watching TV each day.

Serve as an example by limiting the amount of TV you yourself watch. Have time when the TV set is off and the entire family reads something. You may want to watch TV only for special shows. Before the TV set is turned on, encourage your child to select the programs he or she wishes to watch. Ask your child to give you the reason for the choices made.

In addition, watch some of the same TV programs your child watches. This helps you as a parent share in some of your child’s daily activities.

Courtesy: http://www.readingrockets.org/

Mystery Bag

Uses paper bags to conceal book covers. Students get a ‘mystery’ book that they can’t look at before checking it out. After reading it they report back to the librarian on how they liked the book. Kids will love the anticipation of getting something unknown to read.

Reading days

Anniversaries of famous writers are chosen and their selected books are read out completely or in parts on that day.

Book reviews and book annotations

Students write book reviews about the books they issued from the class library on their library notebooks. It may contain name of the author, title, publisher 4 and year of publication of the book, a short summary along with an appraisal containing original ideas. Where as annotations are done by the pupil for the benefits of fellow students.Thease are recommendations about the books they have already read.

Annotations are prepared on cards of uniform size (eg: “Recommended by Priya”). The cards are pasted on the inside covers of the books concerned.

Stage conversations, Dramatizations and puppets

In assembly programmes, stage conversations between two or more imaginary characters from a favourite book are enacted by the students. Dramatizations and puppets provide opportunities for all students to participate in bringing to life their favourite stories. These may consists acting out a story read or told by a teacher or student, or improvising dialogue to accompany action.

Open shelf for Children’s magazines and newspapers

Children‟s periodicals (e.g.: champak, tinkle, etc), children‟s newspaper supplements (e.g.: „Young World‟ of The Hindu) and copies of newspapers are kept in an open shelf in the primary block. These are accessible to all students. They have to place the holdings back into the shelf after reading.

News Reading competition

Presentation of news is an art. The reader conveys the information to the viewer with effect and feeling. Students are asked to present it before the class.

Favourite Book Contest

A ballot box is placed in the primary section and each student is asked to drop into it the name of his/her favourite book. Results are tabulated and posted weekly/monthly on the bulletin board. One or two students of the most nominated book can be given prizes by lottery.

Best Class Library Award

It is an annual award given to the class teacher, for the class which conducted class library activities most efficiently.

Class Library Bulletin Board

A “Class Library Bulletin Board” can be placed in the primary section exclusively for class libraries. Information regarding class-wise list of monthly library activities, new book lists form the main library, selected book reviews or write-ups by students reading lists (prepared by teachers), and pupil‟s book recommendations, sections such as book of the week/month, Author of the week/month, etc are displayed. Newspaper clippings on interested topics can also be shown. Each class can be given the duty of maintaining the bulletin board in a weekly or fortnightly basis.

Outcome: Provides publicity for class library activities. Students get a place for displaying their creative talent.

Library themes

Writing competitions can be conducted on library themes such as -The book that has influenced me most -Books I would give as gifts -Why Read? -Authors from our state/country -Why I like adventure stories -My favourite magazines/newspapers -Books read more than once -The kind of book I do not like

Library Tours

Tours to the main library of the school will be very encouraging to the primary students. The librarian and class teacher may accompany them as guides. They will explain them about the resources available and activities held in the library. Tours can be also arranged to the local public or academic libraries, museums, galleries and book shops.

Outcome: Children get an idea about resources which are kept in the local (public/academic) libraries and institutions. They became familiar with book shops

Information Literacy skills

Information literacy is the ability to locate pertinent information, evaluate its reliability, analyse and synthesise the information to construct personal meaning and apply it to informed decision making (Peter Berger, Internet for Active Learners, ALA).In this information age the ability to handle information is vital. Pupil need systematic guidance and experience in the selection and use of books and other information sources. They should know how to seek and evaluate the information, and how to organize and present it according to the curriculum needs.

Class libraries can conduct activities with the help of main library to develop information literacy skills. The main information literacy skills for primary children are: -knowing „information‟ -knowledge about information resources -knowledge about library rules -parts of a book -care of a book -how to use dictionaries, thesaurus and encyclopaedias -how to prepare indexes and bibliographies -how to take notes and refer -how to use periodicals and newspapers -library classification -how to search the library OPAC -how to search and evaluate the internet/online resources