My Experience.....Reading Habit Survey

     The Readers Club Project on 'reading habit' was the greatest experience I've ever had.  We planned of conducting a survey for students on 'reading habit' in one of our club period (December-January).  Some club members suggested the questionnaire for the survey.  Then we distributed it to students of different schools.  Doing the survey was the most exciting part.  We could meet many new students.

     Our next aim was to find the analysis.  Our guide made it easier by making a computer program.  We were divided into groups to make the works easier. We entered the report in it and soon the analysis report was in our hand! We came to know about many new things in the web such as survey monkey, blogger, slide-share and many others, and we learnt new techniques in MS Excel, MS PowerPoint etc. It is our librarian Mr Mujib Sir who helped us and guided us throughout. We accomplished our work and it became a great success. I enjoyed it from the beginning to the end along with my friends.

Sayooj Samuel

   IX-A

Readers Club Analysis of Students' Survey - Team E

The Readers Club Survey was conducted during December- February as part of a project. A total  of 19  students were surveyed and their analysis were prepared. There were 14 CBSE Students and 5 State Students. All of the respondents have Malayalam as their mother tongue. The complete analysis is the following-

All the schools have libraries  and a majority of students visit their libraries other than their Library periods.

Almost 58% of the students visit other libraries and for a majority of students School Library is the source for getting reading materials(58%)

     All the students borrow books from the school library and 74% of them take Recreations such as Novels, Stories etc.

       English is the most read language(89%) followed by Malayalam(37%) and Hindi(11%).

    GK and Fact books are the most referred book (63%) followed by Encyclopedias(53%) and Dictionaries(37%).

     News papers are read by all the students while only 68% of the students read Magazines.  The  Hindu is the most read paper(68%) while Mathrubhumi and Malayalamanorama are read by 63% and 26% of the students respectively. 79% of the students get the news papers and magazines through Subscription at home. Sports is the most read section (63%) followed by Editorial(37%). Local News is the next most read section. National News and International News are read in small quantities.

The students were asked to rank the books. Among our respondents General Knowledge was the most ranked.

—63% of the students said that they have a library at home. 74% of the students said that they write the reviews of the books that they have read.

—37% of the students read 3-4 books in a month. 26% of the students read 5-6 books while 21% of the students read 1-2 books in a month. 11& of the students read 7-8 books in a month and 5% read  more than 9 books in a month.

—37% of the students pick a book by reading its review while for others Friends opinion counts. 26% of the students just picks up the book randomly. 11% of the students choose the books because of their Parents recommendation.

—42% of the students said that they read books on internet while others said that they don’t read them  because of  different reasons some of them being that they don’t like it, they are not aware and no internet connection.

All the students agree that reading is very important for students. 53% of the students agreed to the talk that is going on in the public- that reading is diminishing.

58% of the students have no preference to the reading times while 26% of the students said that they prefer reading at night. Enid Blyton, Charles Dickens, Chetan Bagat, Roald Dahl and many more authors made it to the list of the students favorite authors. Books written by these authors and also a few extras were there in the list of Favorite books.

Done by- Vishnu V Kumar

                M.Sharan kishore

                 Nirupam V

Getting motivated to read is good,and being able to see the positive change in us is all the more satisfactory.but,if you are the one who has worked to inspire others and noticed good results,then you are both proud and happy.That was how I felt working with the readers club.Our team,which included Shweta,Navya and me did a good job(according to everyone).At first thought,we hesitated to do it because the exams were nearing.But then when we were called to do it,we felt like heroes. After all who wants to study,study and just study?hoping i could stay out of the math equations for a while,I helped the readers club with the analyzing of the surveys, grouping them.Hey,I also founded the school reads blog!Actually,it was nothing, Mujib sir taught me how to do it and I created it accordingly.I also recorded the interviews and created the video using movie maker.
 Anyway.it proved to be a great experience and I realized how much fun it was to work with the library...........


Vineeth kutty

Team experience of GROUP- A

1. Our team enjoyed working on this project. The results of the survey was not what we expected. The survey revealed promising results that the reading habit is not declining among the students. Majority of the students said they love reading. We think it is alarming that the students do not read newspapers and magazines regularly.
Good planning and execution is required at the school level to ensure that the interest for reading is sustained. Reading programmes are to be organised regularly. We feel with good collection of books and comfortable library environment can help a lot in this regard. When good books are available definitely the students will read more. 

2. We had a very good team. All the members were book lovers so it was easy to do the tasks. We worked together very well and the friendship got strengthened. We spent a lot of time with Shweta at her home and her mom provided us with a variety of food and drinks. We learnt a lot about each other. It was really interesting to work as a team. We even participated and led our class for the Hindu Classroom of the year competition. 
We learnt many new software applications and websites during the course of our project. We even used MS Publisher for designing our storyboard for the Hindu In School competition.

3. Shweta and Navya were the interviewers in our team. Vineeth handled the camera and did the videography. Analysis and report wad done by Navya and Shweta. The questionnaire for the survey and the interviews were prepared by the entire team after discussion.  Arjun and Unni were mainly did the surveys with help from others. They also did a lot of data entry work with help from Vineeth.

4. We interviewed the Principal madam and our English teacher. We also did the survey of teachers and students. We prepared the survey report for both the teachers and the students we surveyed. The final analysis of the complete survey was done by the team led by Shweta and Navya. 
We used many software applications and website during the project which include MS Excel, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Publisher, SurveyMonkey.com, IrfanView, Windows Movie Maker (Vineeth did this) and Google Docs.



“The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.” - Anthony Trollope

By TEAM A
Shweta, Navya, Vineeth, Arjun, Unnikrishnan

An amazing experience..

It was a tremendous experience to work for the reading project. Since I was the Reader's Club Secretary, the crown was put on my head. I was the one who was responsible to coordinate the entire project and assist other members when needed.  I got to know a lot about blogging and conducting survey. In short I learnt how to create a blog !!!. I enjoyed conducting surveys and converting the data into pie charts and graphs.

Now coming to the interview session. My best experience was to interview our honourable  Principal Madam Dr.S. Nalayini.  It gave me an opportunity to know her better.

The  funniest thing was to interview my English teacher who is also my mother. It was weird to ask her questions as a student though I managed to complete it without making much of a fuss or in short without laughing!!!. So by the time the two interviews were over, I was able to get a feel of how an interview should be conducted. I am eagerly looking forward to such opportunities in future too.

At this juncture I would like to thank all the people who put in their hard work to make this project a grand success. It is our library sir Mr.Mujib Rahiman who should be thanked the most. He was the one who took initiative and invited me to be a part of this project. My thanks also to my English teacher Mrs.Rugmini Menon who cooperated with us. I am also grateful  to my group members- Nirupam( the heart and soul of this project, in my opinion), Navya Vijayan and last but not the least Vineeth kutty (videographer cum blog designer).

Shweta Sasidharan
IX-B

Photogallery II

Shweta, Navya and Nirupam discussing the Interview Questions

Data Entry and analysis

Sayooj and Team doing the analysis

Balamurali and team

Praanesh and Nirupam entering the surveys collected

Presentations under preparation

Samples of Surveys

Reports of survey

A Sample response

The Online Survey on Library Server

KV Students filling the online survey

We are clearing our doubts with our librarian sir on data analysis

Data Entry

Major Finding of Our Survey

The Questionnaire-based Survey Method and Interviews have been adopted for collecting data for this project. The study was carried out by 25 members of the Readers Club. The individual teams carried out the survey among 378 students from 25 different schools in Palakkad. Managers of three leading bookshops in Palakkad were interviewed. The Principal of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Kanjikode and TGT English of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Kanjikode were also interviewed by the teams.

• The majority of the teachers and students were of the opinion that the reading habit is declining among the students. Almost all the students agreed that reading is important for students.

• Though the respondents’ mother tongue was mostly Malayalam, their preferred language for reading was English. The second most widely read language by both teachers and students was Malayalam as the majority of the respondents have Malayalam as their mother tongue. The need for getting the students to read books in Hindi was really felt, while analyzing the results of our survey. Both our School Library and the Public Library we visited  have a very good collection of books in Hindi and it is really sad that these books are underutilized. Steps need to be taken to create an interest among the students in Hindi literature.

• Quite surprisingly, reading topped the list of preferred leisure activity, pushing sports and television to the second and third positions respectively. The people we interviewed and the teachers whom we surveyed agreed that there is a lot of improvement in the reading habit of students in the last few years.

• The major reason indicated by the teachers for the declining reading habit was lack of interest and motivation, whereas the students indicated lack of time as the main reason. 

• Over 40% students read for information and for improving their general knowledge, while 35.71% read for pleasure.

• About half of the students who responded read more than twice a week. Only 10% reported that they rarely read. More than half of the respondents read for more than an hour.

•  Based on the responses received from the students and the teacher-parents, it was evident that the most preferred category of reading materials are comics and story books.

• Majority of the students do not read newspapers and magazines regularly. The mostliked section in the newspaper is the Sports Section, followed by International News. It is quite surprising that the students do not seriously read the newspapers and magazines and they do not seem to be aware of its potential usefulness.

• About half of the respondents just pick up a book for reading. A good number of students are influenced by their friends’ opinion for selecting a book for reading and they also depend on book reviews. More than 50% do not write a review of the books they have read.

• E-books are yet to have an impact on the majority of the students. Majority reported that they do not like to read books online. Both the students and the teachers reported that the School library is the main source for getting the library materials. A large number of students still depend on the School Library for their need-based information, though majority use Internet as the main source. More than half of the students do not visit any other library. The information clearly points to the important role played by the School Library in fostering Reading Habit among students and the need for the school libraries to be well equipped to cater to the needs of the student community.

• The majority of students visit the library only during the specified library periods. Borrowing books is the main reason for visiting the library and mostly novels and stories are taken home by the students.

• Majority of the students are satisfied with the collection of their respective School Libraries.

• Though the teachers of different schools almost unanimously said that the Reading Habit is declining, only 41% said that they discussed books in their classroom regularly. All the teachers agreed that the KVS Library Policy and CBSE Reading Project had a high positive impact on the reading habit of children, which was reiterated by the Principal and the English Teacher we interviewed. As reported by the Librarian, PublicLibrary, Palakkad, the Reading Contest organized by the Kerala State Library Council has helped in improving the reading habits of the students in the state as a whole.