Guidelines for promoting a reading culture among pupils of Lohana Academy Primary School, Kampala-Uganda

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to develop the guidelines for promoting the reading culture among Pupils at Lohana Academy Primary School (LAPS). The objectives of the study were to; establish the current school library facilities and services at Lohana Academy Primary School (LAPS), establish to what extent pupils use library information materials at LAPS, examine the factors affecting reading culture of Pupils at LAPS, and develop strategies for promoting the reading culture at Lohana Academy Primary School. The study adopted a case study research design while adopting both qualitative and quantitative approaches of data collection. Interview, questionnaire and observation methods were used to collect data for the study. Purposive and stratified sampling methods were used to select the 81 respondents who participated in the study. The study found out that the school library provides many resources such as Dictionaries, Textbooks, Pictures, Charts, Maps and Atlases, story books, holy books, news papers, magazines and other resources in the library. Library users access the library facilities and services to pass exams, to speak some good English, to get more knowledge, to spend leisure and to know more about God. Majority of pupils use information resources from the library five times a week from their class rooms, library, school compound and homes. Teachers, parents and friends help the pupils in explanations of the hard words they come across, selection of the best materials to read, reminding them to read and pronunciation of words as a ways of how they are helped to read. The problems affecting the reading culture of pupils which include; uninteresting reading materials in the library, limited number of books in the library, noise from friends while reading, limited time for reading. The strategies for promoting the reading culture at Lohana Academy Primary School which include; provision of new and interesting books, librarian being helpful, adequate furniture in the library, availability of computers and internet and a clean library. The study concluded that providing the strategies for promotion of the reading culture would help the librarians and teacher librarians lay the strategies for promoting the reading culture at LAPS. The study recommended that professional training to the staff members, integration of story hour, book talks and exhibition into the school curriculum, provision of relevant and current information resources, recruitment of qualified teacher librarians, re-orientation for the parents should be done to promote the reading culture at Lohana Academy Primary School.