The sound of chirpy songs draws one to the Mandal Parishad School in this village, which houses many stone crushing units. Children sitting in a room filled with colourful posters are glued to a colour television set which beams rhymes and cartoon films.
A personal initiative of Headmaster K. Ranga Rao, the audiovisual session gives the young learners a sense of the joy of learning.
Yet another outstanding feature of the room is that it has books neatly arranged in colourful shelves. Children are encouraged to borrow and read them. Reading sessions are part of the time table and every student gets an opportunity to read books with colourful cartoons and solve puzzles.
The ‘Room to Read’ programme started in India in 2003 to provide children with books in their native language and also in English is beginning to yield results in this small school.
Unique concept
Children enjoy the reading sessions and the interesting illustrations on the board and even enact the roles in books- all part of the ‘Room to Read’ programme.
The School Library programme aims to develop reading habit early in primary schools.“Grow by Colours is a unique concept where children are graded according to their levels of understanding. For instance, green and red coloured books have only large pictures and are given to students from classes 1-2, orange, white, blue and yellow colour books are for older children and the books have both text and pictures,” says district coordinator of ‘Room to Read’ programme K. Ravi Kumar. The programme is implemented in 100 government primary schools spread across five mandals of Sattenapalli, Medikonduru, Tenali, Duggirala and Pedakakani.
Founded by John Wood, a former Microsoft employee, in 2003 in India, ‘Room to Read’ is an initiative in developing countries to provide educational opportunities by establishing libraries, creating children’s literature in local languages and constructing schools.
The programme is implemented in 100 government primary schools spread across five mandals of Sattenapalli, Medikonduru, Tenali, Duggirala and Pedakakani
