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Every year, GIS conducts the reading programme ‘GIS READS’ to generate the love for reading among students and to inculcate the habit of reading in them. This year’s programme began on 12th March 2015 with a variety of reading activities for the students. 

The school environment was decorated in such a way that students enjoyed the surrounding and felt happy to listen to stories and read some. Different grades came to school at different times and students were allowed to come in coloured dresses while the teachers were dressed up in story characters.  Different story characters welcomed the students at the beginning of the day. Some characters brought beautiful smiles to the students while some surely made students remember their childhood memories. The day engaged students in reading activities such as leisure reading, story-telling, slide show presentations and reading and writing activities.

One enjoyable activity for the students was to listen to a guest reader reading them a story. Guest readers were selected from the education field: from teachers to teacher educators and from professional language trainers to local authors. Story telling was carried out in the school hall where the guest readers read out amazing stories to the students. The interest that students showed towards this activity surely made the event even more fruitful. The Slide-show presentation was carried out in the AV room and Resource room where invited guests read out stories with the imitation of the characters and variation of voices. Moreover, students found reading a pleasure during the time they spent at the leisure reading stall set up in the school quiet area. As a final activity, students prepared colourful bookmarks and had extra activities such as creative writing, translation of titles, designing book covers and preparing newspaper front page.

Apart from these activities, the school set up a book donation stall for students who were interested to donate books to school. Students went home after capturing a moment with the characters which was an amazing sight.

This activity day was the phase one of the ‘GIS READS’ programme which will be followed by the second phase - a six months’ period of reading books of any kind appropriate for school children which also includes reading books written in both Dhivehi and English. The second phase is created in a way that students would get the chance to achieve certificates at three levels: Keen Reader, Enthusiastic Reader and Proficient Reader. The guideline of the programme is uploaded on the parent web portal for the reference of both parents and students.