Three students emerged as winners for the grand finale of Happy Kids School’s literacy challenge in Accra yesterday.
Anne Lois Ackah Conninah, Peggy Obiri Yeboah and Stephen Kodjoe won at Lower Basic, Upper Basic and Junior High School level respectively.
The stiff competition saw winners receive books, certificates and medals.
Led by a team member of the Literacy Challenge entourage, the students were taken through the technicalities of the competition and the entire process explained to them.
Ms Jemima Nartey, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the school, after the competition, said the programme was aimed at equipping students with language concepts and life skills that would be useful to them at all time.
According to her, reading was important because it helped the students to gain knowledge on issues of interest, build their vocabulary and as well make them confident.
“Reading gives you all the imagination of the world, it helps you to analyse issues and make meaningful discussions,” she added.
She appealed to parents to encourage the children to develop the habit of reading and also asked them to summarise the book to them.
She urged parents to take their children to bookshops and allow them to select the book of their choice, so that they could appreciate the benefit of reading.
MsNartey encouraged the children to cultivate the habit of reading to improve on their academic activities.
She said current studies on literacy had confirmed that the more contact children had with books, the better readers they become, adding that school libraries were the usual reading places for pupils.
Mrs Gladys Afrique Ahali, the Chief Executive Officer of Library Resource Institute, said the library was a heartbeat to every community that offered support to teaching and learning.
She said the reading project would instil in the students the culture of reading and upgrade their knowledge in variety of issues.
She urged parents to create a book shelf for their wards to serve as alternative for not watching television or playing games.
Some of the past students of the school advised the students to eschew all acts of indiscipline and learn hard to justify the investment made in them.
BY BENEDICTA GYIMAAH FOLLEY
