Promoting the culture of reading among school children in selected communities around the University of Cape Coast through reading clinics

Abstract

To support the reading projects in Ghana, the University of Cape Coast Library, in celebrating the 3rd Library and Information Week under the auspices of the Ghana Library Association in October 2015, donated over 1000 reading materials to five schools around the University of Cape Coast. The library also organised a reading clinic to offer reading literacy knowledge and skills to school children. The reading clinic was organised to instill the culture of reading and writing into children, to enable them enjoy reading and writing throughout their school days and beyond. Also the exercise was intended to avoid the tendencies of struggling to read and write in the future years of the children. In this regard,150 pupils with reading difficulties were selected from the five schools. Five professional librarians and ten paraprofessionals assisted in carrying out the reading clinic. The facilitators also organised reading and spelling competitions in the schools. To encourage and sustain the habit of reading, books were donated to the various schools to establish school libraries. After a period of six months, the programme was evaluated. It was realised that the programme have been generally helpful to pupils. Inadequate reading materials, and low teacher interest in pupils reading were realised. The study, recommends that, Ghana Education Service through the Ghana Library Authority should ensure that schools have libraries with qualified librarians and adequate reading materials.