THE ACTIVITY IMPROVES THE READER’S IMAGINATION AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS. What do you reserve your newspapers for immediately after reading them? In Uganda and generally Africa most of the newspapers are reserved for charcoal stoves. For any after use of these newspapers with children at hand, please think twice this time before discarding them as scrap. There is a better way of putting them into proper use. A newspaper is an invaluable educational tool that can sharpen the children’s reading skills if well utilized. Questions must be tickling your mind. How can a young child read and grasp the complex language in which the newspaper is written. Most of the stories are written in a language and style, which appeals to serious intellectual reading. How then is a nursery or primary child expected to read and understand? All these questions and more raise a genuine concern, which most teachers and parents identify with. By the way did you know that a child enjoys reading the newspaper just like you do? The sight of a six-year-old –daughter of my friend deeply engrossed in a newspaper page in the sitting room shocked him recently. Yes, the girl was reading and what interests a child is not the same as what interest you in a newspaper. The newspaper makes the child to intimately identify with the adult world and feel like an adult. It is an ideal resource readily available within your environment yet it is of immense education value to your child. Please try the following activity with a child using any newspaper of your choice. Materials required • Two plain sheets of Manila paper. • A small bottle of office glue. • A pair of scissors or razor blade. • The newspaper of your choice. Procedure • Ask the child to go through the papers and identify pictures of people, places or anything which he/she likes/admires. Accord the child some freedom to make a free choice without complying with your interests. • Help the child to cut out his/her identified pictures from the newspaper. Do not dictate to the child the pictures you want to cut out. Your child has a reason for every picture he/she picks on. • Help he child to paste the picture on the manila sheets. • A child in upper primary can be asked to write down why he/she likes the pictures cut out while a child in the lower primary can explain in words why the pictures cut out are good. • Let the manila sheet be hung in a place where the child will see it and feel proud of it. This activity will improve your child’s imagination and communication skills. • It can be done in various ways including asking the child to describe what is going on in the picture. As you help the child through this activity, ensure that it is pleasurable for both you and the child. You should strive to make the child view reading as a source of fun and not a burden. This will enable you to sow seeds of reading culture in the child’s educational life and cement a solid teacher or parent-child relationship between you. Please give it a try and share with us any exciting or frustrating experiences you will have gone through in the course of your newspaper reading activity. I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2004. Lukwago Joe Kyazangaschool@yahoo.co.uk or joekmps@yahoo.com www.kmps.8m.com

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