Serangoon Garden Sec Sch
The Reading Ambassadors from Serangoon Garden Secondary School were on stage on Sunday, 5 July from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm for the "Reading Marathon 2009" at NLB.
Led by Teacher-in-Charge Ms Sim Hui Hwang, Librarian Ms Chee Foo Lan and Adjunct Teacher Ms Tan Sha, the 7 student participants spent 6 weeks during the mid-year school holidays to practise for the event as part of the school's library program.
The students are also members of the school's Reading Club.
Two of them, Koh Jin Cheng and Tan Zhi Wei, both 16 years-old and currently attending Sec 5 in the school, are grateful to the teachers for encouraging them to join the reading program and to participate in the reading marathon.
It offers them the opportunity to read aloud in public...something they cannot normally do as people may think that they are crazy; or report them to the police for being a public nuisance.
This is the first time that they have read aloud in public and it is a learning experience which helped them to overcome nervousness and "stage fright", become more confident in themselves and improve their spoken English. Most important of all, they have picked up the habit of reading and would visit the libraries more frequently. Besides their own school library, the Cheng San and Bishan branch libraries are located near their school.
The NLB Mobile library also visit the school every semester to showcase new books for them to choose. There is a wide range of book titles to cater to their quest for knowledge and recreation. The books are delivered right to their school's doorsteps for the convenience of those who have never stepped into a public library before.
In the past, people have to travel long distances to get to a public library.
Nowadays, there is always a public library near you!
Whilst Jin Cheng enjoys reading adventure stories, including Harry Potter; Zhi Wei prefer to read detective and ghost stories. They admitted that they spent most of their free time playing computer games.
However, they now realise that reading books can be just as fun. Reading for knowledge will also help them in their studies and research for school projects.
At home, they can also read aloud. Its okay as long as they do not disturb their neighbours. Its not against the law :)
Sent from my Treo 650
Labels: Serangoon Garden Sec Sch
5 Comments:
Hi, Mr Seah! Thank you so much for your encouraging words of wisdom and advice to Jin Cheng and Zhi Wei from Serangoon Garden Secondary School. It was indeed a privilege for all of us to be involved in National Library Board's Reading Marathon and certainly, it was a rare opportunity for all of us to meet up with you and have you blogged about my school's involvement in NLB's Reading Marathon 09. Thank you so much for spending time to share with us your journey into reading, allowing my students to understand the value of reading which should ideally be the first thing a parent should introduce to his child as an inherent habit that will last him a life time of joy and learning. Your recount of how you had initiated your then 9-month-old daughter into reading was indeed a valuable piece of advice every parent should learn to undertake in order to provide their child with a valuable recreational activity and a life-long habit. Mr Seah, what I most appreciate is the fact that you could connect with my 16-year-olds so effortlessly, patiently giving them advice on how to make reading a joy and a habit. I am very sure your encouragement and advice would be etched firmly in their minds. It was indeed a privilege to get to meet a blogger like you who is so earnest and concerned about sharing the importance of reading with Singaporeans, bearing in mind that bloggers, in particular, teenaged bloggers, are more into sharing interests in fashion, gossips and grouses about their daily lives. Not that these are not worth blogging about, but a blog to positively influence young people should do so much more good to encourage young people to enjoy a good read. On behalf of Serangoon Garden Secondary School, in particular my students and Ms Chee Foo Lan and Ms Tan Sha, I would like to thank you once again for devoting your time and effort to blog about our participation at Read! Singapore 09and the chance to learn about your passion for reading and learning. All the best to you and may you continue to bring the pleasure of reading to more people. I shall encourage my students to visit your blog for advice and updates. It will be great for them to read your well-informed and well-written blog. Take good care and Happy Blogging, Mr Seah!
Hi Ms Sim. Thank you for your kind words, encouragement and compliments.
The pleasure is all mine.
I enjoyed talking to Jin Cheng and Zhi Wei. I was once a teenager like them, over 50 years ago.
Time and space filled the generation gap which is what happened between us now...the old man and the boys :)
I could visualise how my former teacher in secondary school, Mrs K S Quah had coached me and taught me to "Read not to contradict, read to educate..." and that's life learning to educate ourselves.
In your role as a teacher, you are, like Mrs Quah, showing the ways to Jin Cheng, Zhi Wei and your many other students, to enjoy the world of books and reading....giving them the recipes of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" and let them prepare and boil the soup by themselves, to nourish their minds and souls.
Will they be rushing down to the medical shops to buy the bottled 'chicken of essence' after reading this? hahaha...just kidding.
How nice if we could just swallow some "knowledge pills" or pour "magical formulaes" into our brains to learn more in a shorter time.
No way...Go read. The National Library's there!
Cheers!
Hi, Mr Seah! Thank you for your encouraging words and advice given by you.I am very happy and enjoyed talking to you!Thank You very much for devoting your time to blog about our school.I will continue to read more books.Once again Thanks for blogging our comment on your blog!
Hi Mr Seah! Thank you so much for devoting your time to blog about our school..We really appreciate it! Once again, thank you so much!
Thank you Zhi Wei. Although we are generations apart, we share the same interest in books and reading.
Please let me know if you have read any good books lately and recommend them to me.
Cheers!
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