Friday, January 4, 2013

Learning to Read (Reading Room) Programme

Himachal Pradesh is a leading state among the hilly states in India in almost all fields of development. In education the state has achieved many awards to implement the national programme with right vision. The voluntary organization is also contributing a lot in this sector. Himachal Pradesh Voluntary Health Association (HPVHA) a state chapter of  Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI) is implementing many types of activities in the state with the direct presence in all 12 districts. HPVHA is implementing a Reading Rooms under Learning to Read with the financial support from Room to Read India Trust and Department of Elementary Education (SSA). The programme was initiated in September 2006 with the establishment of libraries in 16 Government Primary Schools in Shimla city. At present more than 250 Reading Rooms (School libraries) have been established in Shimla, Suni, Nerwa, Kupvi, Kandaghat and Dharmpur educational blocks in Shimla and Solan districts. The programme is providing books  for reading to children of  6 to 14 years of age. 

The objective of the programme is to develop reading habits in the early years of schooling, to develop confidence among the children by encouraging creative reading/writing, to encourage and develop reading with fluency to bridge word recognition and comprehension, to develop systematic performace/tools to address the problem of developing reading skills among children, to create enabling environment to develop children literature on the bases of their written work, to reduce dropout rate in the school and to work toward the sustainability of the Reading Rooms in all the schools. 


HPVHA is implementing this programme by providing books received from Room to Read India and appointed a volunteer for two schools who visits these schools on the atlertnate days. These volunteers are trained to facilitate these children with play way methode and providing books to them. The books issued record is being maintained by the voluteers at every schools. Each special day is being celebrated in these Reading Rooms by sharing the information of the day with children. The community member are also issuing books for their reading and are involving themselves by monitoring the activities. The school children are taking good interest in these books.