The project "Today a reader, tomorrow a leader" has been started to arise students' interest in reading, develop their reading comprehension and expand their horizons. The coordinator of the project is Võru Kesklinna School and the project partners are Escola Pericot, Zespol Szkol w Ostrowku, Zakladna skola s materskou skolou Milana Rastislava Stefanika, Budimir 11, KORH - Basisschool Scharrel.In our today's fast and digitalized world students do not master reading skills very well any more, nor is reading considered attractive enough. Active communication in social media has influenced students' language – they have acquired the type of incorrect language used in this environment. Students face serious problems when reading task instructions and texts. Due to the fact that students do not read so much fiction (as showed by international studies PISA and PIRLS ) any more, their vocabulary has become poorer and their self-expression is poor as well. There are more and more students from multi-lingual families in our school who have problems with understanding basic as well as literary texts. This problem concerns students in all levels. It is a topical problem in other countries as well problems due to the quick global digitalization. This is why it would be necessary to share one's experience with others and learn from each other.This particular project will be oriented to introducing a wide range of literature to students. This should develop students’ reading skills, enlarge their vocabulary as well as foster their moral beliefs and develop their way of thinking and the sense of the world. The project will also introduce students both the national literature and traditional culture and the ones of other countries.The goals of the project are:to motivate students to read and get interested in the literature proper for their age;to develop reading comprehension skills;to develop speaking skills;to develop public speaking skills.To achieve the goals, there are the following activities: mapping the students' reading at the beginning and at the end of the project; mapping the book rentals in the school library; "Reading Tree", teachers'/students' reading recommendation; a commercial to support reading; reading to playschool children; introducing one's favourite book; choosing the most popular internationally known book among the project countries; display or poster of an internationally known writer; acting out a short play at the book festival; orienteering game on literature; choosing top 10 favourite books in each country.The following methods are used to carry these activities: questionnaires and their analyses, comparisons; readings, presentations, illustrations, a dramatization, a film.The project can be followed in eTwinning environment and project homepage.In the course of the project six project meetings will take place where prepared works are presented and followed by discussions and analyses.The expected impact of the project is that students' interest in reading and the popularity of reading has increased. Students know the writers and their most popular books of different countries. Students are better at public speaking and self-expression. Students make progress at school. Readings to playschool children arises their interest in reading. Students involved in the project show interest in the culture and literature of other countries. The main aim of the project is to influence the local target group (students and playschool children). The impact is measured through questionnaires (students' reading, book rentals in the library) and the "Reading Tree".What makes the project international is getting acquainted with the literature of different nations as well as communicating with partner schools.
The Erasmus+ KA2 project "Today a reader, tomorrow a leader" took place in 2016-2018. The main goals of that project were to arise students' interest in reading, develop their reading comprehension and expand their horizons. There were 5 partners included in this project. The coordinator of the project was Võru Kesklinna School and the project partners were Escola Pericot, Zespol Szkol w Ostrowku, Zakladna skola s materskou skolou Milana Rastislava Stefanika, Budimir 11 and KORH - Basisschool Scharrel. The age of students who were involved the project was 3-16, it depended on school. In our today's fast and digitalized world students do not master reading skills very well any more, nor is reading considered attractive enough. Active communication in social media has influenced students' language – they have acquired the type of incorrect language used in this environment. Students face serious problems when reading task instructions and texts. Due to the fact that students do not read so much fiction (as showed by international studies PISA and PIRLS ) any more, their vocabulary has become poorer and their self-expression is poor as well. There are more and more students from multi-lingual families in our school who have problems with understanding basic as well as literary texts. This problem concerns students in all levels. It is a topical problem in other countries as well problems due to the quick global digitalization. These were the reasons why this project was initiated. This particular project was oriented to introducing a wide range of literature to students. It developed students’ reading skills, enlarged their vocabulary as well as fostered their moral beliefs and developed their way of thinking and the sense of the world. The project also introduced students both the national literature and traditional culture and the ones of other countries.The goals of the project were: to motivate students to read and get interested in the literature proper for their age; to develop reading comprehension skills; to develop speaking skills; to develop public speaking skills. To achieve the goals, there were the following activities: mapping the students' reading habits before and after; mapping the book rentals in the school libraries at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the project; making up a "Reading Tree", which shows how many books have the students read during the project; presenting teachers'/students' reading recommendations on project’s homepage; making a commercial to support reading; reading to playschool children twice a year; introducing one's favourite book; choosing the most popular internationally known book among the project countries; making a display or a poster of an internationally known writer and presenting it in a public place; acting out a short play at the book festival; celebrating the International Book and Rose Day, making and playing the orienteering game on literature; choosing top 10 favourite books in each country and making a poster, writing a book in six languages where main characters travel through these countries which have involved the project, meet local book-characters there and visit famuous sightseeings of theses countries. The following methods were used to carry these activities: questionnaires and their analyses, comparisons; readings, presentations, illustrations, a dramatization, making a film, writing a book. The project can be followed on project’s homepage http://bookleaf.weebly.com/ . The main aim of the project was to influence the local target group (students and playschool children). The impact of the project was that students' interest in reading and the popularity of reading has increased during the project. According to statistics it's possible to say, that the students started to read more and they visited libraries more often and rented books from there. Students know the writers and their most popular books of different countries more than before. Thaks to reading to playschool children students are better at public speaking and self-expression. The students' reading skills, self-expression and text comprehension developed and they made progress at school. Reading to playschool children arised also playschool children’s interest in reading. There was a good cooperation between children in different ages. Students who were involved in the project showed interest in the culture and literature of other countries, they started to read the books which partner schools’ children have suggested and read. The impact was measured through questionnaires about studets’ reading habits, statistics about book rentals in the libraries and analyzing the results of the "Reading Tree". During the project the students who were involved have read 9192 books - about 2 tonnes of books.