Did you notice that vehicles travelling on the road outside The Lady Andal Venkata Subba Rao School, Chetpet, were stopped and the road blocked for about 10 minutes on the 26th of November?
Well, the reason was that many school children had gone on a march to create awareness about the benefits of regular reading.
Children from different schools were seen marching with their school banners and bands, and holding placards that roared slogans like ‘You Reap you Sow, You Read you grow’, ‘The first page of a Book, pulls us immediately like a Hook’.
This march was part of an event ‘One Nation Reading Together’ conducted by Scholastic India held at the Lady Andal School on the Word Reading Day. Students from various schools gathered at the venue for this event. Two huge red dogs (mascots of Scholastic) were seen walking around.
It is an annual event, where children in schools across the country will spend 30 minutes (preferably at 12 noon) on that day reading for fun and doing other activities that celebrate reading as a pleasurable and enriching experience.
In 2009, around 850 schools from across the country participated. Scholastic had gifted over 85,000 books to children associated with NGOs in different parts of the country.
This year around 2000 schools participated and each school received a reading kit containing the reading pledge and a book. For every school that participates in the event, Scholastic India will donate 100 books to the library of a needy school. This year the reading pledge was written by Anushka Ravishankar, a well-known author and poet.
The chief guest for the event was Krishnamachari Srikkanth former captain of the Indian cricket team and the current chairman of the selection committee. He said that the best part of his life had been his school days, and told the children to enjoy their school days and enjoy reading books.
He also spoke about two of his products edustrokes.com and cricketstrokes.com. Through this website Srikkanth, who is also an electrical engineer, aims to teach science and maths with the help of sports.
He said when he plays a particular type of shot towards the boundary everyone thinks he was hitting simply. But he said he hits the ball in that way because he knows how the ball will travel due to parabolic movement which is nothing but science. “So Science and Sports are related” he said.
Through the cricketstrokes.com website he aims to teach cricketing techniques to children who otherwise find it difficult to find good coaches, he said. He then read the pledge and the students followed him.
The principal of Lady Andal School addressed the children. A dance performance followed by a couple of students from Lady Andal School narrating a poem and a story were exciting.
Amit from ASAP read a few funny poems which set the students laughing. Then the drum beats filled the air and school banners were unrolled with pride. After the march past, refreshments were provided. The students returned home bursting with enthusiasm and a new found energy to get their hands on the first book that they see!