Students cluster around a table searching for just the right book to read. Once they find one, they settle back under the giant tent, enjoying an extended period of reading for pleasure.
It’s all part of the Reading Tent, a project organized by the Reading Association of Uganda (RAU) to promote reading throughout the country. Each Reading Tent lasts three days and involves a number of activities aimed at creating a reading culture among young people. Here are some of the key components.
Reading session: Each day during the Reading Tent project, each child chooses a book and reads silently for three hours. Children who finish their book may read another until the three hours have elapsed.
Sharing session: After reading, children pair up with friends from other schools and share the stories they have read.
Discussion session: Important guests are invited to give a talk on various aspects of the literacy campaign in Uganda.
Storytelling: In a special plenary session, children tell stories from their cultural setting and oral tradition. Prizes are awarded for the best stories.
Word games: These games make learning exciting for the children and make them active participants in the learning process.
Drawing, modeling, and painting: These activities enable children to have fun and become more creative as they exercise their imagination.
Debate: At the end of the Reading Tent, children choose a topic of their own interest and hold a debate. Debates have covered a variety of topics, such as polygamy, gender issues, child labor, universal primary education, alcoholism, smoking and drug abuse, and poverty. The best debaters receive prizes.
Closing ceremony: At this session, a special guest addresses the audience, presents books that have been donated, and awards prizes to the winners. These ceremonies often attract the electronic and print media, guaranteeing publicity for the activities.
In addition to reaching many children throughout Uganda, the Reading Tent project has helped RAU raise its visibility and create partnerships with others involved in literacy promotion. The project also helps draw new members and attract new sources of funding to promote a reading culture in the country.
“The Reading Tents are also helping us to establish reading clubs in the participating schools as a mechanism for sustaining the momentum generated at these occasions,” say the leaders of RAU. “The Reading Tents have helped us to instill the much-desired reading culture in the children while they are still in school.”
Editor’s note: This article is based on information submitted by Samuel Andema, president of the Reading Association of Uganda.
Reading Tents promote reading in Uganda. (August 2005). Reading Today, 23(1), 13.
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