Developing a culture of reading

Last night, the Library campaign group and members of the Support Team met to discuss ways in which we could develop a culture of reading amongst Kinbu students. Like I mentioned earlier, it's all well and good renovating the library, but if the students do not use it our efforts would have been in vain.

We met in order to brainstorm both ways we could motivate students to go to the library (aside from the refurbishment) and also to make reading in general something of a habit. We came up with quite a few ideas, and now we need to pick one main area to focus our energies on. 'Minor' initiatives that will not require too much initial effort to start up can run alongside the main idea. It has to be something sustainable so it can run without Databank Foundation needing to be there at all times (or every time it needs to be run).

We'd like to open up the discussion to all the groups of the Programme. Here is a list of the ideas we came up with:

--> Termly quizzes/competitions based on set books. Internal (within Kinbu) and external (involving other schools) reading competitions
--> Book/library club - Members get exclusive benefits, i.e. watch movies, go on trips etc based on attendance to meetings
--> Notice board in library – announces local essay competitions, new books (reviews), etc. Students have to go into the library in order to check it
--> Have speakers periodically come and talk to students about the importance of reading (e.g. Ama Ata Aidoo). Can also show movies that demonstrate this (e.g. The Book Club, The Debaters)
--> Arrange books in order of difficulty. A ‘reading marathon’ could then be introduced. Students must finish one book before advancing to the next. Can create positive competitiveness
--> Library ‘scavenger hunt’ – event where students must hunt to find specific items in the library
--> Kinbu could join Readwide Club
--> Create a writers and debaters club
--> Organise drama productions based on specific books
--> Reading linked to grades, i.e. have an exam/section of an exam based on a book
--> The library could be emphasised at orientation – new SH1 students could be given a tour of library and encouraged to join the library club
--> Games competitions (e.g. scrabble) twice a term. First prize could be one term’s fees paid, second prize a scrabble game, third prize a citation… etc. There should be a reading based qualification system; the more students read, the more prizes they are eligible to apply for

Which do you think is the most practical, effective and sustainable idea? We'll be meeting up again this Monday (17th May) at Databank at 5pm, and we should reach a decision by then. In the meantime, especially if you're part of the Clean Up campaign or the Support Team (formerly the School Fair campaign), please leave comments with your suggestions. If you prefer, you could email me or Elinam instead.