It’s noon on Friday, November 27, 2009 at Sunshine Worldwide School, Bainguinim, and you would be forgiven for thinking it was like any other Friday but you would be wrong–fresh from showing their sporting prowess at their annual Middle School Sports Day and everybody has their nose stuck in a book!

Why is that so special? The 400 students that study here are reading books of their choice or listening to stories just for fun. Sunshine joins over 3 lakh children nationwide who are reading or doing reading based activities for Scholastic’s annual initiative, ‘One Nation Reading Together’.
For every school that participates in the event, Scholastic India donates 100 books to the library of a needy school or NGO. Last year over 35,000 books were given to such children and Sunshine school didn’t want to miss out on helping a great cause all in the name of reading.
This year children from pre-school through to Class VII participated in this event which encourages our children to read. Children need to be encouraged to read for pleasure and not because they have to if we want to build a nation of readers. Diana Charles, Academic Director at SWS, has this to say on the topic; ‘The importance of reading cannot be emphasised enough! It is an important skill that needs to be developed in all children. The library period at SWS is a top favourite of our students; they are also free to visit the library in the break and any free periods. Class teachers have formed class libraries where the students are able to pick up books and read when they have finished their work. The more children read, the better they become at reading. We are about to start DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) as part of the daily timetable. Yes indeed, reading is seen as a very important activity at our school and we are doing our bit to support the ONR program.’
These days with so many ‘screens’ to choose from reading books can often take second place. Frequently children are only exposed to school text books and don’t get the opportunity to dive into the fascinating world that reading for pleasure opens up.
Goa now boasts of a new public library and it is refreshing to note that one of Goa’s new schools is taking the approach of encouraging children to read rather than ‘watch’. Helene Menezes, library co-odinator for the school, comments, “Parents often moan that their children just want to watch TV or play on the computer in their free time. But what they need to understand is that you have to lead by example. Switch of the TV and your mobile phone, pick up a book and read to your child. Tell a bedtime story, if that’s not your thing read something out that’s interesting from the newspaper or a magazine and do it everyday without fail. Story time in the library is one of the most pleasurable and fulfilling experiences; one of the nicest phrases I hear at school is ‘please tell us another story.
At Sunshine we read to all of the students, not just the tots, students are never too old to be read to, especially those with learning difficulties, just because they cant read the words it certainly doesn’t mean that they cant understand them–as we say in the library ‘a page a day keeps boredom at bay’.
Among the NGOs that Scholastic India will be visiting to gift books in Goa this year are: Child Rescue; BE-BOOK – the mobile library for children in Goa and Care and Compassion in Goa where author Venita Coelho will be reading to the children. According to Frank Wong, President, Scholastic Asia, “At Scholastic we believe that we must do our utmost to provide books to children who normally would not have access to books. The joy and the thousands of smiles we see as young readers receive their free books make it very rewarding for the company and everyone involved.”