The British Council has launched the Kids Read Programme for the third year at the British Council’s Dhaka University Campus Office today. Developed and designed by the British Council, the project is supported by grants from the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC). ‘Kids Read’ is an award-winning scheme developed to help children enjoy reading. Teachers and parents often struggle to find ways to motivate children to read.
In this edition of the programme, 12 selected partner schools from Dhaka City with students from primary school studying in grades 1 to 5 will take part. Bangladesh has been one of eight countries in Asia, where the programme has been implemented. It is an initiative which also teaches teachers from the selected schools on how to be more interactive and engaging with the students by using English Story books.
Sayeed Khokon, Honourable Mayor of Dhaka North City Corporation, inaugurated the program as the Chief Guest in the ceremony. Francois de Maricourt, CEO of HSBC Bangladesh and Barbara Wickham, Country Director, the British Council Bangladesh and Sarwat Reza, Library Manager, British Council Bangladesh were also present at the launching ceremony. A story teller ran story telling session with the children and books were handed over to the school authorities and among the students.
Barbara Wickham, Country Director said ‘Reading is a very engaging process of learning. Reading story books is a great tool for learning a language. Through reading story books children learn vocabulary in context.Reading enhances their knowledge on correct sentence structures, spelling, grammar, etc. Above all they learn a new language, new facts in a fun and enjoyable way’.
To support the partner schools in English language and literacy development, ‘Kids Read’ programme was piloted in Bangladesh in 2015. The first edition of the programme was implemented in three Madrasas and three Government Primary Schools in Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar. Over 3,000 students and 36 teachers participated in the edition. Around 6,500 primary school students and 88 teachers from eight different schools in Dhaka participated in the second edition of the ‘Kids Read’ project in 2016 through community events like ‘Boshe Ako’, nationwide storytelling competition, art competition and teacher training programmes.
This year, “Kids Read” aims to reach over 10,000 students from 12 schools in Dhaka city. Each school will receive a set of popular storybook titles from the United Kingdom (UK) to improve the reading habit and English language skills of students.