The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Scanning words with speed to win honour and cash

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Monday, Sep 08, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Scanning words with speed to win honour and cash

Staff Reporter

A. Subhashiny of New Perungalathur bags a cash award of Rs.20,000

— Photo: K.Pichumani

WELL D0NE: Aminur Rahman, Consul-General, Australian Consulate in Chennai, presenting the award to A.Subhashiny in Chennai on Saturday.

CHENNAI: In just 25 seconds, this youngster scanned 306 words to circle 17 keywords. And she was adjudged the topper in the Speed Reading Competition organised on Saturday as part of the Newspaper in Education (NIE) initiative of The Hindu.

A. Subhashiny, a Standard VIII student of St. Anne’s Matriculation Higher Secondary School at New Perungalathur, topped the clock to win a cash award of Rs.20,000.

The second prize of Rs.6,000 went to Anusha Sharan of Standard VI of Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, K.K. Nagar, and the third prize of Rs.4,000 to B. Annapoorani of Standard VII of Vidhyodhaya Matriculation Higher Secondary School.

A surprise

A very excited A.Subhashiny said the victory came as a surprise. Though she clocked 25 seconds in the final round, she finished the third in just 13 seconds.

“I took more time during the last round, since the rounds were progressively difficult.”

Anusha said she found the search for words easier than the numbers, since she was more familiar with English. “I read a lot of storybooks, that is why my language and reading skills improved.”

Annapoorani said she planned to buy a cycle with the prize money.

“Last year too, I participated in the speed reading contest, but since I was not familiar with the rules, I did not qualify. This year I concentrated and was quick.”

The toppers will also each receive Rs.10,000 worth of courses from Only Success Learning Technologies (OSLT), which organised the programme with The Hindu NIE.

Elimination rounds

A total of 1,300 students from 125 city schools that are part of The Hindu NIE initiative participated in the preliminary round.

A few elimination rounds winnowed down the list to 25 students, and the 22 students who did not make it to the top three received cups and certificates.

Participation certificates will be sent to the schools.

New skills

Aminur Rahman, Consul-General, Australian Consulate in Chennai, who distributed the prizes, congratulated The Hindu on bringing in new skills and values to children as they grew up. Today’s children were very privileged and had scope to do more things.

Schools invited

N. Krishnan, Regional General Manager (Circulation), The Hindu, said the newspaper brought out several supplements such as Young World, Education Plus and NXg targeted at children and youngsters. He invited schools and children to take part in The Hindu Young World Quiz competition scheduled for next month.

G. Vidyashankar, Chief Executive Officer, OSLT, said speed reading helped students become creative and discouraged learning by rote.

S. Lakshminarayanan, Director-Sales and Marketing, OSLT, said speed reading helped students concentrate better and improved their grasping power.

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