Special Session To Read News Paper In School
Students read The Hindu during a special session ahead of their regular classes at St. Joseph’s Matriculation Higher Secondary School at Ondipudur in Coimbatore. St.Joseph’s Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Ondipudur, has introduced its Newspaper in Education (NIE) programme to classes VI, VII and VIII from this year. Having started the programme last year, only classes IX and XI were part of it. But, owing to requests from parents and the progress shown by students in communicative English, it was decided to involve students in lower classes in the programme too.
“If students are introduced to newspapers as early as Class VI, reading becomes a habit for them. Their reading skills are improved and they automatically develop interest in current affairs,” said V.Pandiselvi, Principal of the school. The school devoted half-an-hour in the morning for reading the newspaper. “With the guidance of the teacher, classes VI to IX and XI read and analyse the newspaper,” Ms.Pandiselvi said. As the reading session was held before class hours, it did not interfere with the academic routine.
Students were asked to read aloud, as it developed their reading and comprehension skills along with improving their pronunciation. “Communication skills are very important in this competitive age and mere academic excellence is not enough. Students need to be able to express themselves in English and be confident of speaking the language,” Ms.Pandiselvi said.
During the reading sessions, students were asked to pick any one news item that caught their attention and write about it in their own words. These were further discussed during English classes. The exercise had also greatly helped the students in carrying forward the tasks of the Institute of Language Management’s spoken English programme adopted by the school, she added.
