Developing a Reading Culture: Worldreader in Ghana

Amanda Oliver

Encouraging and promoting reading will help inculcate it as habit. With ereaders and digital books, many are exploring the question of leapfrogging from print to digital - can it work? LWB-Ghana team member Amanda Oliver writes about Worldreader and its efforts to introduce digital books into communities.

Worldreader is a non-profit organization whose goal is to supply children in Africa with free e-readers. David Risher, the founder of Worldreader, believes that providing access to digital books to children in sub-Saharan Africa is a key component in developing a reading culture there. He aims to send 1 million Kindle e-readers to Ghana, Kenya and Uganda within the next year.

Earlier this year, Worldreader released the results from its pilot study, which took place in Ghana between October 2010 and July 2011. 481students and teachers at participating pilot schools were given Kindles and data was collected during the length of the project. The report divides the findings into positive and negative effects:

Positive Effects
• Increased access to books and enthusiasm towards reading
• Increased resources for teachers
• Increased technological skills (students and teachers learned skills quickly)
• Increased performance on standardized scores
• Increased exposure to Ghanaian literature
• Students shared their e-readers with friends and family

Negative Effects
• Breakage – over half had some form of breakage occur during the study
• Dissatisfaction with some features (such as unintended book deletion)
• Sample population was not geographically representative
• Exposure reduced due to unforeseen events (teachers strike, device breakage)

Worldreader and Amazon are working together to make improvements to the devices to decrease the breakage rate and eliminate unwanted features. Worldreader believes that if the cost of e-readers continues to decrease, “…the e-reader would be an efficient, cost effective method to distribute textbooks and educational material” (IREAD Ghana Study, 2012, pg. 7). This project demonstrates that with the access to books and some encouragement, a reading culture may develop organically.

Download and view the report here from the Worldreader website.

Other Links to this Post

1. Librarians Without Borders » LWB Newsletter (October 2012) — January 5, 2013 @ 12:07 pm