Rotary Club of Accra-Labone holds reading clinic for Kanda Basic schools

The Rotary Club of Accra-Labone has organized a day’s reading clinic aimed at improving the reading skills of the pupils of the Kanda 3 and 5 basic schools in Accra.

The exercise forms part of the club’s project dubbed: “The Reading Project” which started last year.

Under the project, about 1,500 supplementary reading materials, worth over GH¢10, 000 were supplied to 12 selected public schools in the Labone-Nima enclave.

During the reading clinic, members of the Rotary Club of Accra-Labone took turns to read the book, titled “Against the Odd” to the pupils before the pupils also took turns to read it.

The pupils were drilled on some keywords from the passages in the book as part of testing their understanding of what they read.

The pupils were also taught some basic techniques in reading, particularly on how to pronounce certain words as well as taking note of punctuation marks.

The President of Rotary Club of Accra-Labone, Mr Yaw Abrokwah encouraged the pupils to develop positive attitudes toward reading.

He said good reading skills involve paying attention to details and added that without attention, it would be difficult to read properly and make meaning out of what you read.

He admonished the pupils to take note of unfamiliar words and also encouraged them to keep note so as to write down expressions they find interesting in the books they read.

Mr Abrokwah said the reading clinic was designed to check up on how the beneficiary pupils of the Reading Project were faring and pointed out that “I am enthused with their reading performance.”

A past President of Rotary Club of Accra-Labone, Gifty Annan Myers shared her personal experience with the pupils on how reading has improved her pronunciation of words and communication skills as a whole.

She said any career pursuit comes with communication and that it was through reading that the pupils would be able to develop their communication skills.

She also asked the pupils to always read prologues of books they read before reading the entire content, explaining that reading the prologue would help you to better appreciate the content well.

Gifty Annan Myers also urged the pupils to always have dictionaries with them when reading so as to enable them to look up the meanings of words they are unfamiliar with.

Another past President of Rotary-club, Mr Lamtiig Apanga, who moderated the reading session of the pupils advised the pupils to take time when reading, urging them to be confident when reading.

The Headmaster of Kanda 3 and 5 basic schools, Mr Emmanuel Omari Afari, commended Rotary Club of Accra-Labone for the exercise, promising that he would continue the exercise in the school to inculcate reading habit among the pupils.

Pupils who excelled in the reading exercise were rewarded with various prizes, including books, pens and money.