When a librarian shared statistical data with about the number
of books issued grade wise, I was understandably dismayed by what I saw! The
greatest number of books were issued by students belonging to the grades One to
fourth, and the least number of books were issued by students of grades eleventh
and twelfth over a period of time! What I could see was a distinct trend with a
graph steadily declining as it reached grade eleven and twelve, although there
was a distinct spike upwards in grade ten!
A few questions that came to mind regarding this trend
included:
1.Does this trend of a decrease in the number of books issued
by grade eleven and twelve students indicate a decreased interest in
reading?
2.Is the trend of borrowing a large number of books at the
primary level the result of teacher intervention? Is it artificially induced or
are the students already into books?
3. Can anything be done to maintain the trend throughout the
grades till grade twelve?
I could also see that throughout a range of upcoming schools
that senior grade students were never given or allotted a Library Period, unlike
students studying in lower grades. It is clearly visible that not allotting a
library period for students of grades eleven and twelve within their weekly
schedule of studies is a major drawback in the promotion of reading as a healthy
habit throughout grade levels.
A plea to educationists and policy makers in the country is to
consciously promote the active reading of books and journals throughout grade
levels even till the final grades in school. One argument in favour of promoting
the habit of reading because reading helps expand the students’ perspectives,
enrich their minds with ideas, and help increase their vocabulary. One
of disturbing trends I have observed in students of grades eleventh and twelfth
in all the streams, Humanities, Commerce, and Science was how poorly they
performed in Comprehension tasks. Their inability to perform well in
Comprehension tasks was because they did not know how to tackle the task. They
generally read the questions first and then try to lift the answers from the
passage as the answer. This is a strategy that works well with questions that
are factual but not well with questions that are based on reasoning, analysis
and even interpolation! If students don’t know how to read at the senior grade
levels, then is it not high time we taught them to read effectively? But then
how do you teach student different reading skills unless you actually expose
them to a wide range of books of different genres? True, students can access a
large number of free e-text on the internet, but then you would need to carry
your own device to access the internet, and BYOD is yet to be introduced in
schools. Another issue with reading on the internet is that it promotes majorly
the limited reading skills, perhaps skimming, or scanning but certainly not in
depth reading, or reading for the big idea. Also there are limited possibilities
for doing annotations, or taking down detailed notes from an e-text.
But then, before I stray further, I would like to turn back to
the first question mentioned initially. I don’t believe that the decrease in the
number of books issued by students of grade eleven and twelve indicates a
decreased interest in reading in students of senior grades. It is difficult to
imagine that the students who had a voracious habit for reading would suddenly
shun them in the senior grades because they had suddenly started hating the
habit of reading. As far as the second question is concerned, I very strongly
believe that the habit of reading books and the interest in books is strongly
driven by the teachers in lower grades. What needs to be researched further is
whether there might not be a correlation between the reduction in the number of
books borrowed at the senior grade levels with lack of teacher interest in
reading. Here I would like to affirm that I have seen teachers of lower grade
levels accompanying students to the the library, helping them in choosing the
books they should read, and even organising active reading sessions. Turning to
the third question, I strongly believe that a lot can be done to maintain the
reading habit in senior grades. First and foremost, a library period should be
set aside for all students. Secondly students should be encouraged to do active
research on different topics in different topics not only from the internet, but
also from actual books found in the book. They can practice active note making
in the library by consulting Reference Books which are not issued. Promoting the
habit of reading for information should be encouraged not just by the language
teachers, but also teachers of other subjects! But then the first step would be
to add at least one library period in the timetable of students of senior
grades. While teachers might accompany the students initially, this can be
stopped gradually as students learn to navigate through the shelves. Reading
session based on themes could however be conducted by the language
teachers.
Popular English newspapers in India very often carry articles
that suggest that traditional books are still popular in spite of the entry of
the Electronic version. These newspapers also suggest that the reading habit
still exists! According to one blurb appearing in the Brunch Supplement
“Indulge” of the Hindustan times today, the 13th December, 2015, “The ebook
may be here to stay; but the physical book is alive, and well, and doing better
than ever,” the writer goes on to the writer, “According to a recent
article in The New York times, ebook sales fell by 10 per cent in the first five
months of 2015 in America. And a Nielson survey showed that the portion of
people who read primarily on an e-reader fell to 32 per cent in the first
quarter of 2015 from a high of 50 per cent in 2012.”- Goswami Seema, The Writing
Is On The Wall, Indulge; Hindustan Times Brunch-December 13, 2015. If
reading “physical” books is still in trend then is it not high time we
thought about reviving our now defunct libraries for senior grades? Agreed that
reading ebooks is a new trend, but then how do you doodle, and make annotations
on an ebook with an ink pen?
Perhaps the best thing we can do is to conduct our reading and
writing workshops in libraries instead of class rooms. Active reading and active
writing go hand in hand so why not teach the 6+1 traits of writing by taking
students to the library and showing them exemplary works by authors who
exemplify the use of the 6+1 traits of writing? I know this would mean
additional work for the teacher to go to the library and pick out works that he
thinks exemplify the 6+1 traits of writing. In a world where we are moving
towards experiential learning and expeditionary learning isn’t it ironical that
we tolerate the ersatz rather than the real stuff? Perhaps by taking students of
grades eleventh and twelfth, might we not be able to not only read better, but
also write better?
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