General News of Friday, 29 September 2017
Source: Tulasi Mathias
2017-09-29
Read Ghana Foundation
The Executive Director and Founder of the RGF Mr.Mathias Tulasi in an interview stated that the establishment of Read Ghana Foundation as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) is a wake-up call to the literacy crisis that affects Basic School Pupils in our country Ghana.
He explained that we need to realise that reading and writing are much more than a technique or a skill.
Literacy he believes is about people’s self-esteem and ability to function and flourish in society as private individuals, active citizens, employees or parents.
He was of the view that, our societies need to face this unseen crisis and that all stakeholders need to do something and act together in order to boost literacy levels and to reduce illiteracy rate in the country
He said we are living a paradox: while the digital age requires ever higher levels of literacy, thousands of Ghanaian Basic School Pupils continue to fail in reaching the mark.
Far too often we take for granted everyone’s ability to read and write,to process information and to critically engage with its multiple sources.
Sadly, for far too often we assume that it is up to teachers, schools or governments only to deal with literacy.
But we forget that, literacy skills touch so many aspects of our social and economic functioning, so we must understand broad range of players have a role to play in addressing the issues.
This he said has necessitated the coming out of Read Ghana Foundation to look at the key issues and solutions to achieve literacy for all Basic School Pupils in Ghana and the entire country at large.
He opined that, Basic School Pupils should be encouraged to develop love for books and the disposition to read because becoming a lifetime reader is based on developing a very deep love for reading at a tender age.
He believes as interesting stories are read to them, pupils would see the reader as a role model.
They should be made to listen to a wide range of interesting and exciting fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and rhymes, retell familiar stories and share a wide range of books with adults and other pupils.
Teachers and parents he emphatically stated should give opportunities to pupils to enable them to browse in the book corners and use books to find information.
He stressed that, as children begin to understand that print carries meaning they should also be encouraged to develop a curiosity about words, how they sound, the patterns within words and how they are composed.
Through sharing and using books, children would become familiar with letters and their shape and sound.
Contexts for learning and reading experiences he was of the view should be made enjoyable for pupils.
When asked about their plans for schools as far as this academic term was concerned, he mentioned their plans as follows:
Friday 29TH SEPTEMBER,2017. A talk on reading.Definition of reading, types of reading techniques and the importance of reading books and other educational materials.
Friday 27TH OCTOBER, 2017.A talk on ways of promoting reading.Thus the roles of parents, teachers, pupils or students etc
Friday 24TH NOVEMBER, 2017.Dictionary Game.A very interesting game to help build vocabularies of pupils or students.
Aside the above, he stated that they have been doing free evening reading class for children in communities, donating books to pupils, libraries, radio talk shows on issues concerning reading, giving talks at conferences, helping kids to create their own stories etc
He used the opportunity to congratulate the numerous facilitators of the NGO across the country for their dedication towards this social work they doing to help Ghana and congratulated all the other literacy-related NGOs in the country for the great efforts as well.
He also thanked the following radio stations: Global FM 105.1, Kekeli FM 102.9, Klenam FM 101.5, Dela 105.7 Radio, Radio Hogbe 106.5, Universe FM 105.7 for their great support so far.
He concluded by saying that, Read Ghana Foundation is committed to sweeping away the saying that, if you want to hide something from a black man then put it in a book and that a reading nation is a winning nation.
