Vinsers foster their love for books thanks to a reading diary

A ‘Reading Diary’, which consists of many activities to develop the culture of reading, is accompanying the students in their journey to discover great books.

Along with the development of the Internet and other visual media, the reading culture has been losing its value. However, reading books helps to develop the students’ perception and stimulates their imagination and creativity in a way that visual media cannot. Amongst numerous initiatives in developing the reading culture currently carried out at Vinschool, the ‘Reading Diary’ is the activity strongly implemented throughout all grades and is receiving highly positive responses from the students. Following are some of the outstanding reading diary pages from different grades, please read them and share your thoughts!

The classic “Without Family” was analyzed carefully and thoroughly with vivid drawing. The author also drew the characters in a clear table, which shows the comprehensive and thorough reading process

“A story that helps people to understand what keeping a promise and an open heart means”  was the comment of Ha Ly, a student of Class 7A4 after she had read  “The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly“. She retold her favorite story, not forgetting to creatively draw striking illustrations to make it more vivid.

A lot of students love the literature works about the underprivileged children’s desire to better themselves in difficult situations. ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ has “awakened compassion in each person” – this was the reason why this reading diary author loves and relates to this story.

Dinh Hue Anh of Class 8A3 at Vinschool meticulously introduced each book she had read; for example, ‘Life Without Limits’, ‘Heart’, ‘Pippi Longstocking’, etc with her own special reading diary pages.

Not only encouraging the students to share their thoughts about famous literature works, the ‘Reading Diary’ also stimulated them to share their favorite comic books. This page that introduces the well-known comic book named ‘Doraemon’ was meticulously presented with beautiful handwriting from a fourth-grader at Vinschool.

Children’s stories are full of humanism; some examples of which are ‘Charlotte’s Web’, ‘The Giving Tree’, ‘Wings Are only for Birds’, etc. are also written down with innocent but sincere comments.

Writing a diary about the stories they had read encouraged Vinsers to get into the characters’ shoes, express their viewpoints towards those characters, and apply their experiences as well as memories to understand the stories. Eventually, writing the reading diary helps develop their analytical mind. Therefore, reading literature books in general and classic literature works in particular not only helps Vinsers cultivate their Vietnamese vocabulary but also enhances their arguments, analytical ability and ideas on presentation styles.

Noting down what one has been read helps stimulate the imagination and the ability to present what the authors wrote, but with their own imagination. With their special aptitude in art, Vinsers did not simply illustrate their thoughts, they made their own presentations using drawings or mind maps with high aestheticism, which further inspired their readers. It was their dedication and enthusiasm that spread the love for books to their classmates so that reading has now become Vinschool’s culture.

“Formerly, I was lazy at reading books at home, but over time, I got used to spending some time in the evening reading books to have something so as to talk with my friends the next day, instead of watching TV or reading comic books as before”, a Vinschool student said.

Reading Diary is a project implemented based on Taffy E.Raphael and Elfrieda H.Hiebert’s method, which was introduced in the book named “Creating an Integrated Approach to Literacy Instruction”. The list of book encourages Vinsers to diversify the types of book they read such as philology, science, arts, etc. This is the project belonging to the project chain that encourages the reading culture at Vinschool including the Reading Corner, the Vinschool Book Fair; 10,000 students and teachers read The Giving Tree together, etc. Profound reading culture development activities have been implemented continuously and professionally throughout the Vinschool Education System.