No more bookish projects, please!

Nabanita Deshmukh

“Our children don’t read and they find books boring!” is a common complaint of parents and teachers alike. More so in teachers’ meetings, the question on why children do not read and how to make them read has been debated over and over again. A school that I know of is no exception; only this time a motivated and dynamic group of teachers decided to take the bull by its horns and tackle the deteriorating reading habits of their students.

Questionnaire and percentages
The first task was to design a questionnaire with the help of students to understand the reading habits of school children. This became an interesting activity that made students think about the questions they could ask their friends and also learn how to design a questionnaire. Eventually, the questionnaire was developed and it assumed an important form.

The students made multiple copies of the questionnaire and distributed them to their classmates and students of other sections. A week was allotted for filling up the questionnaire and the completed forms were collected over the weekend.

A little bit of math helped the teachers analyze the questionnaire results. What emerged was of great importance to better understand the reading routines and habits of students. Below are some figures:

• 70 percent of students preferred playing computer games or watching TV instead of reading books.
• 30 percent of students rarely frequented the school library.
• 75 percent of students rarely finished a book they borrowed from the library.
• 20 percent of students gifted books to their friends on their birthdays. The rest bought other gift items like dresses, gadgets, perfumes, etc.
• 80 percent of students said they would never buy books for themselves and preferred buying other gift items.

Taking these results into consideration, the teachers decided to begin a reading project in their classrooms.

The ‘reading walls’
The first task was to decorate the walls with interesting facts and pictures of books and create a reading-rich environment for students. For this, the teachers scanned cover pictures of storybooks and pasted them on the walls. Blurbs from the back cover of books were photocopied and also stuck with the intention of kindling the interest of students. Eventually, teachers, especially the ones who taught English, organized storybook reading activities where each child had to read a storybook, write the gist of the story and then give a small talk about it to his/her classmates without divulging the climax or the end. This strategy made the others curious to know the story and they often borrowed the books from the library or even began buying them!

Parts of a book
The second project was to design the cover, the spine and the back page of a book. The students were first asked to write a story. Cover pages of various books were then shown to them and they had to distinguish the different parts like:
a. Title
b. Name of author
c. Name of illustrator
d. Name of publisher
e. Image

The teacher pointed out how the illustration gave hints about the story and how important it was to have attractive images on the cover to attract readers.

In a similar way, back covers of books were analyzed by distinguishing the different parts like:
a. Author bio
b. Quotes from other sources praising the book
c. Blurb, summary or description of the book

The spine of the book is very often overlooked but plays an important role in attracting readers. Just like our spines are strong and help us stand erect, the spine of the book connects the front cover to the back cover. It not only binds the pages of the books together but has important information like:
a. Name of author/illustrator
b. Title of the book
c. Publisher
d. Publisher logo

The spine always faces the reader on a shelf and very often this is what first attracts the reader to the title, especially in a library where books are always arranged in rows.

Make your own book!
Once the parts of the book were explained to the class, the teachers gave students chart paper sheets, glue sticks, sketch pens, thick needles and thread. With these in hand they had to design their own cover pages, back covers, and spines based on the stories they had written.

Finally, the students typed out their stories and inserted the pages into the book covers and then stitched or pasted them to the spine. The children had now created their own storybooks with their names, titles and drawings and they all looked so proud and happy! Their ‘masterpieces’ were displayed in the classroom where other teachers and students got a chance to look at them and a fruitful discussion took place between the ‘authors’ and the spectators.

Soon, a list of age-appropriate books was put up on the classroom walls with the help of the school librarian to help students know what books were available for them in the library.

Finally a small book club was started with students circulating their own books amongst friends. One student was in charge of keeping a register to ensure the smooth functioning of the club.

Encouraging changes
What was the effect of this project on students? Time alone can tell the long-term impact of our efforts at getting the children to enjoy books but smaller changes did take place in the students which were quite concrete and visible. For example, there was now a crowd near the classroom walls every morning where book information and photos were pasted. Students were actually reading the articles and admiring the pictures!

• The librarian informed the teachers that more students were now borrowing books.
• The book club formed by the students has amassed new members.
• Children are gifting books to their friends and are also buying them for their personal use.

The way forward

• Let us hope that teachers of different sections will continue doing projects on books with their students to inculcate good reading habits.
• Language teachers could encourage students to give small talks on the books they have read for motivating their friends to read good books.
• Children could be asked to visit book fairs and exhibitions with their parents or friends.

The saying ‘If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain,’ could be adapted to the reading habits of our students. ‘If children won’t come to books then books must go to the children,’ is an apt phrase to sum up our project on books which was not so bookish after all!

The author is a teacher and writer of children’s stories and rhymes. She conducts workshops for teachers and students on storytelling and interactive methods of teaching. She can be reached at deshmukh.nitu@gmail.com.