Dehra Dun : With reading habit on the decline, particularly amongst the school going children in the elementary classes and most of their time being engrossed watching television or playing, the Hardwar district in Uttarakhand has come out with a novel idea of inculcating the habit of reading amongst the tiny tots.
The district education department has decided to open reading rooms in the 133 primary schools in the district, primarily with the intention of inculcating reading habits amongst the class one and two children. The reading rooms will be stocked with Hindi story primers and comics of ‘chacha chowdhary’ and ‘sabu’ so that the children are encouraged to go to the reading rooms and read the books or comics.
An official of the department confided that it was found that due to lack of reading habit amongst the children, they were not doing well even in subjects like Hindi, which is taken for granted. A reason for this could be the fact that the parents and guardians also normally pay interest in subjects like English or sums, because of which subjects like Hindi suffer the most, she claimed.
She said that it was found that the small children despite the fact that a number of them have their mother tongue as Hindi, but when it came to the rudiments of writing or making sentences, they were not able to write correctly, which prompted the department to take the decision of setting up reading rooms and perhaps bring about some improvement.
A journalist with over 40 years of experience, Jagdish Bhatt was Editor, Hill Post (Uttarakhand).
Jagdish had worked with India’s leading English dailies, which include Times of India, Indian Express, Pioneer and several other reputed publications. A highly acclaimed journalist, he was a recipient of many awards
Jagdish Bhatt, aged 72, breathed his last on 28th August 2021 at his Dehradun residence.
