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Building Dreams: A Story of Joy, Books and Endless Possibilities

Report by Brunda Gurka

In a world full of possibilities, all it takes is a spark of inspiration to transform lives. For us at Joy of Reading, that spark ignited in 2023, when we set up our very first end-to-end library. The success of that initiative didn’t just open the doors of imagination for children—it opened new doors for us too. One of those doors led to Amazon.

A Spark Becomes a Movement

Our journey with Amazon began when Priyanka Pollam, an Amazon employee, stumbled upon our story. Inspired by our work and guided by a recommendation from T-SIG (Telangana Social Impact Group), Priyanka took a step further—she applied for Amazon’s Employee Grant on our behalf.

It wasn’t easy. As a small NGO, we weren’t sure we’d meet Amazon’s rigorous screening process. But with a detailed budget, clear goals, and the tangible impact of our first library project, we earned their trust. Priyanka stood with us through every step, ensuring we had the support we needed. Today, we are proud to acknowledge her as a key patron in this journey of bringing books to life. Through a partnership with Amazon Corporate Sponsorship, we successfully set up three end-to-end libraries in Hyderabad and nearby rural areas.

From Vision to Reality

In March 2024, our project began with meticulous planning and a budget of ₹4 lakhs. Our goal was to bring libraries to underserved schools, empowering children with access to diverse books and inviting spaces. We identified three schools as beneficiaries:

• Zilla Parishad High School (ZPHS), Miyapur: A school with over 1,000 students from grades 6 to 10.

• Mandal Parishad Primary School (MPPS), Kondapur: A primary school serving 400 young learners from grades 1 to 5.

• ZPHS, Devuni Yerravalli: A rural high school with 130 eager students from grades 6 to 10.

From April to mid-June, we transformed our vision into reality:

  • Kondapur: A Principal’s dream come true.

At Mandal Parishad Primary School, Kondapur, Principal Ramachandraiah and Balaji Sir had been requesting a library for over a year. The room they provided was plain and dim, but their passion inspired us to transform it with vibrant animal-themed walls and Supplied 750 books focusing on beginner readers, comics, and Telugu books. The setup included 4 open shelves, plastic chairs, tables, and wall art, creating an inviting space that brought endless joy to their primary school kids. The children’s joy when they first saw the library, captured in a Facebook video, made all the effort worthwhile.

[BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS OF KONDAPUR END TO END LIBRARY]

  • Chevella: First Rural Library.

At Zilla Parishad High School, Devuni Yerravalli (Chevella), the request for a library came from the principal and Ramulu Sir, a teacher who had heard about our work in other schools. They were eager to bring the same opportunity to their rural school, located 60 kilometers from Hyderabad. They offered a large multipurpose room used for PTMs and school events, but it was plain, poorly ventilated, and lacked fans. We transformed the space by adding bright shelves, cupboards, a teacher’s desk, lively wall art with lower- level books, comics, and picture books. The library became not only a learning space but also a showcase for parents during meetings. Today, it’s a source of pride for the school and an inspiration to other schools in the area.

[BEFORE AND AFTER APHOTOS OF CHEVELLA END TO END LIBRARY]

  • Miyapur: Making the most of a small space.

At Zilla Parishad High School, Miyapur, the library began as a small, plain room with nothing but natural light to offer. Its size meant we had to work creatively. We decided to keep it simple by adding colourful shelves, bright chairs, and reusing the school’s tables along the walls. A fresh coat of paint and cheerful wall art completely transformed the space, and Delivered 800 books covering all reading levels. Despite its size, the library became a warm and inviting corner. Today, it’s a favourite spot for students, who now enjoy spending time exploring books.

[BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS OF MIYAPUR END TO END LIBRARY]

By mid-June, all three libraries were ready to open their doors for the academic year.

During the Year

Kondapur

The focus was on 4th-grade students, with two weekly sessions held on Thursdays and Saturdays. Volunteers used a phonetics curriculum to assist struggling readers and taught comprehension skills to more proficient students. Reading levels were assessed, and students were grouped accordingly for targeted learning, ensuring that each student received support suited to their ability.

A unique aspect of this initiative was the involvement of a housing community that adopted the school. This community of volunteers took on a dedicated role in helping support the students, providing consistent assistance. This level-based teaching approach, along with the community’s involvement, allowed for more focused and personalized support for each student.

Devuni Yerravalli

Reading assessments were conducted for all students, and support was provided during library hours. Efforts were made to encourage teachers to integrate library time into their schedules, helping to ensure that students had consistent opportunities to engage with books. The school is doing its best to maintain library hours, despite any challenges they may face, to provide students with a valuable reading experience.

Miyapur

Throughout the year, reading assessments were conducted for Grade 6 students, and they were divided into groups based on their reading abilities. With the help of volunteers, weekly sessions were facilitated every Friday, targeting three main groups:

            •   Students struggling with recognizing alphabets.

             •   Students struggling with word recognition

            •   Students capable of reading sentences.

“However, the main challenge was the high volume of students and the noisy atmosphere, which made it difficult to create a focused learning environment. One session per week was not enough to effectively support struggling readers. Additionally, the school lacked enough staff to extend library hours or conduct more frequent reading sessions.”

This situation highlighted the need for more individualized attention and resources to help improve the reading skills of the students in a productive and less distracting environment.

OUTCOMES

The goal for these libraries is to have a positive impact on the students, and we hope to achieve the following outcomes:

  • Improved Reading Skills: We want to support students at all three schools with structured reading sessions that match their individual levels.
  • Increased Engagement: The idea is that the libraries will create a fun and welcoming space, making students more curious and excited to learn.
  • Tracking Progress: We hope to regularly assess students to track their progress and make adjustments when needed.

While we’re steadily working towards these goals, one challenge remains ensuring consistent volunteer availability for sessions. To address this, we’ve implemented a backup volunteer system. However, there are still occasional gaps.

We also encourage schools to conduct library sessions regularly. For instance, schools in Kondapur and Devuni Erravalli have embraced this practice enthusiastically. Miyapur Primary and High School, however, had faced some challenges. To support them, we’ve recently appointed a librarian, ensuring the library remains an active resource for students. We currently do two assessments each year—one at the start and one at the end—to see how students are doing.

Next Steps

•  Sustaining Library Use: We’ve already trained the teachers to manage the libraries, but the challenge is that with the heavy curriculum load, they often struggle to prioritize library hours and are always looking for external help. Our goal is to make library time a regular part of their teaching routine, so they can manage it on their own. We have training materials and guidelines in place to support them in doing this more effectively.

•  Expanding Volunteer Programs: Recruit more volunteers to sustain weekly sessions.

•  Encouraging Community Involvement: Inspire individual donors and corporations to fund similar projects.

Stakeholder Feedback

•   Student Reading Interest: Students have shown a strong interest in library periods and are excited to engage with the library. JOR books and videos have been especially popular and seem to keep students engaged.

•   Reading Levels: While we don’t have hard data on this yet, feedback from several schools suggests that there have been noticeable improvements in reading levels, with some students showing better proficiency in specific grades. The Reading Level Assessment (RLA) tool has been helpful in tracking progress and identifying areas for improvement.

•   Library Management: The guidelines provided for managing the library have been useful, helping schools organize their libraries and plan activities more effectively. The JOR-donated books have been well-received, with many teachers and students noting their quality and appropriateness for different reading levels.

Unique Adoptions

• The phonetic curriculum was introduced last year and has now been implemented at all three schools to support struggling readers.

• In rural Devuni Yerravalli, we added fans and ergonomic furniture to create a more comfortable and conducive environment for reading.

• Each library was designed to reflect the unique culture and demographics of the respective schools, ensuring that the space feels welcoming and connected to the community.

A Call to Action

Ask us about our Dedicate a library to a loved one.
These libraries are more than just rooms with books—they are spaces of hope, growth, and imagination. If you wish to dedicate a library to a loved one or support our initiative, reach out to Joy of Reading today. Together, we can build more dreams, one book at a time. If you’re interested in this, email us at joyofreadingus@gmail.com.

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Library Standard Operating Procedure (SOP ) Project Report

Report prepared by Dhanya TA

JoyofReading signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions , Society, (TSWREIS) Gurukulam Telangana Tribal Welfare Residential Educational Institutions, Society (TTWREIS) on May 25th 2023, to collaborate on the Library Standard Operating Procedure Project. The objective of the project is to implement the detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) for libraries present in TSWREIS & TTWREIS schools in a phased manner. Both parties collaborated on this project to enable the librarians and principals to establish a defined role of librarian, follow necessary library management best practices, systematically inculcate the reading habit in students by systematizing the library hour and measure outcomes of the library hour and librarian initiatives.

singing of Memorandum of Understanding with TSWREIS , TTWREIS
(from left to right: Chandrakanth Reddy, Ronald Rose, Harini Raghavan, Yusuf bee Nema, George Varkey)

Joy of Reading (JoR) developed a comprehensive Library Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) document. This manual covers the complete setup of a library, detailing the necessary steps, the librarian’s role, book arrangement by reading levels, techniques for conducting reading level assessments, essential records to maintain, conducting library hours, and metrics to measure outcomes.

Pilot Program Details

The primary focus of the SOP project is to measure the effectiveness of the library setup by tracking the activities conducted by librarians and improvements in reading levels. As a first step of this process, training was conducted for all the 25 schools at the beginning of the academic year.

Library SOP Experiential Training

Joy of Reading conducted the Library Standard Operating Procedure Experiential Training for 20 schools of TSWREIS and 5 schools of TTWREIS Gurukulam on June 9th, 2023. The training was for the whole day for librarians and half a day for principals. The librarians went through the concepts of performing Reading Level Assessment, Interactive Read Aloud and practiced them during the workshop in teams. During the after noon session the Library Activity planner was discussed in detail

The library activity planner has been created to assist schools in conducting library hours effectively. It presents ideas and suggestions for activities for librarians to enhance children’s reading skills in an engaging and enjoyable way. It includes detailed weekly, monthly, and yearly plans, recommendations for movies and online read-aloud videos, questions to stimulate discussion after reading, and various book suggestions.

  • Training session
  • Training session
  • The trainers and the trainees
  • Reading level assessment practice excercise

Books donated by Sakku Group and JoR as a part of the library SOP project

Joy of Reading did not stop with just sharing the knowledge but also was instrumental in providing the schools with right resources to conduct the library hour effectively . JoR distributed 6185 English books and 3500 Telugu books (Telugu books sponsored by Sakku Group ) of all levels to the twenty five schools as part of the Library SOP project.


Dr Sadhana Pendurthi from Sakku Group handing over the books to Smt. Sarada Kambhambati

– VENKATA DHARMA POULTRIES PRIVATE LIMITED  (Sakku Eggs)  sponsored 140 books per school for 20 schools of TSWREIS and 5 schools of TTWREIS Gurukulam as part of their Corporate Sponsorship program partnering with Joy of Reading on June 9th, 2023. A total of 3500 Telugu story & information books across all levels were donated. Dr Sadhana Pendurthi , Director Sakku Group handed over the books to Smt. Sarada Kambhambati, Joint Secretary TSWREIS

Here are some instances of books donated to schools

135 English books and 140 Telugu books were donated from Joy of reading to TSWRS Parvathgiri

201 English books, and 140 Telugu books were donated as a part of the library SOP project to TSWRS Boath

365 English books and 135 Telugu books were donated as a part of the library SOP project to TSWRS Nandimedaram

JoR donated several books in Telugu and English as a part of the library SOP project to TSWRS/ JC (B) Shaikpet

JoR donated 222 English books and 140 Telugu books as a part of the library SOP project to TSWREIS Tekulapalli

During the year

The project spanned the entire 2023 academic year, measuring outcomes for library and librarian initiatives. JoR collected monthly data on library activities, such as the number of books read per class, read-aloud sessions, and online read-aloud video viewings. At the end of the year, reading level assessments were conducted to evaluate progress.

The JoR team also held monthly meetings with the schools, engaging with the librarians to understand their progress and collecting metrics periodically. Additionally, twice during the academic year, the JoR team conducted one-on-one sessions with both the librarian and the principal to discuss progress and provide ongoing mentorship throughout the year.

This structured program significantly boosted librarian morale, as they felt proud of their achievements and were pleased with the children’s excitement and eagerness to attend library sessions. Librarians gained clarity in their roles, and the main goal of improving reading levels was successfully met. The SOP also served as a guide for schools without dedicated librarians, ensuring effective and engaging library hours were conducted.

Outcomes

  • Librarian Empowerment: 100% of librarians reported improved clarity in their roles.
  • Increased Reading Interest: Over 90% of librarians observed increased enthusiasm for library activities.
  • Data-Driven Improvement: Schools implemented systematic data collection to track library activities.
  • Measurable Reading Gains: All schools that conducted reading level assessments (RLA) showed improvements.
    • 69% of TSWREIS schools saw at least 70% of students improve by one or more reading levels.
    • A correlation was observed between increased library hours (3+ per week) and improved reading levels.
  • Character Building: Books fostered positive character development in students.
  • Engaging Activities: Creative activities like skits, pop up story book making, quiz and poster-making boosted reading motivation.

Next Steps

  • Integrate library planning into the beginning of the school year for both principals and librarians.
  • Streamline data collection monthly for easier recording and reporting.
  • Scale the program to include more schools (100+) for next academic year.

Stakeholder Feedback

Overall, stakeholders praised the SOP’s impact on:

  • Student Reading Interest:
    • Students look forward to library period.
    • JOR (Joy of Reading) books and videos were particularly engaging for students.
  • Reading Levels:
    • Several schools noted significant improvement in reading levels, with some achieving 100% reading proficiency in specific grades.
    • The RLA (Reading Level Assessment) tool was seen as valuable for measuring progress.
  • Library Management:
    • The SOP provided clear guidelines and a framework for efficient library organization and activity planning.
    • JOR-donated books were considered high-quality and well-suited for different reading levels

Unique Adoptions

  • Addagudur plans to distribute books for summer reading with a showcase upon return.
  • Chevella celebrates reading improvements with lunch with the principal and student-led activities.
  • Imampet Suryapet implemented the program effectively using the SOP document despite missing training.

The overall success of the Library SOP project highlights its potential for expansion and its significant impact on fostering a love of reading among students.


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THE MADINAGUDA PROJECT

END TO END LIBRARY SET UP

Report Author: Dhanya TA, High school student, Chennai

During the beginning of the year 2023, Joy of Reading (JoR), India was approached by the Telangana Social Impact Group (T-Sig) in Jan 2023, to draft a budget proposal for establishing a comprehensive physical library in a government school given a space. CASPIAN foundation as part of their CSR Efforts liked the proposal of sponsoring a library. Subsequently, Caspian Foundation got in touch with Harini from JoR India, and wanted to check out a few previous projects undertaken by JoR. Ms. Mohini, Sr. Manager from CASPIAN checked out the library at Telangana State Welfare Residential Schools in Narsingi,  and was impressed at the beautiful and simple setup that motivated children to attend the library. The company decided to sponsor an end to end physical library setup.

MPUPS school at Madinaguda was selected after thorough scouting. The principal, Mr Syed Yousuf, was brimming with enthusiasm and was eagerly awaiting the establishment of a library for his children and extended full support and cooperation. With approximately 400 students ranging from grades 1 to 8, the upper primary school possessed a spacious room ideal for a library. Funding was secured in mid-March 2023, and the JoR team diligently started the work targeting  to complete the library before the onset of summer vacation in April 2024.

The room required refurbishment, including repairing broken windows, painting, and thorough cleaning. Several volunteers contributed to the effort in transforming the given space to a beautiful room. A high school student Mrinalini helped with the design of the wall art, and another volunteer by the name of Apurva helped with designing the layout of the interior. The walls were painted with simple beautiful art work to make it into an appealing room for the children to spend time. Colourful furniture and furnishings were procured to create an inviting environment.

(before and after photos of the end to end library)

Books across various levels, both in English and Telugu languages were procured. A total of 700 books across the GROW BY levels as well as Information books and Encyclopaedia’s (including 8 educational charts) were provided. The books were sorted and labelled according to the GROW BY Levelling system of Hippocampus Foundation and were arranged neatly in shelves

On April 24th a grand inauguration of the library was set up coinciding with the last day of the school. The grand opening saw the presence of many respected individuals, including the District Educational Officer Sri P. SUSEENDRA RAO, Ms. Archana Suresh, Director of CSR, Telangana Social Impact Group, Sri Prasad and Smt Shilpa founders  of the Caspian Foundation, the Mandal Education Officer, amongst others. Joy of Reading team with its volunteers conducted a grand opening ceremony inviting everyone from the school, volunteers and their families and the parents of children.

JoR India Meeting with Caspian, T-Sig and Madinaguda school teachers on inaugural day
– explaining the goals for the year

During the Academic Year

Summer vacation ended and the new academic year started in June. JoR did not stop with just creating the library, but worked towards supporting the school to conduct the library hours. As a  first step, JoR conducted the ‘Inculcating Joyful Reading ‘ training at the school for all the teachers. Due to the absence of a dedicated librarian,  the Joy of Reading team helped with the initial library hours. At this time Smruthi Giri, who interned with JoR along with the JoR India volunteers helped with conducting Interactive Read aloud sessions and  reading level assessments for students in grades 4 to 7 during the months of June and July. In order to support the library, CASPIAN foundation agreed to fund a dedicated librarian for the school. Ms.Vani Gajibanda was hired as the librarian and commenced duties in August 2023.

Librarian Vani Gajibanda joined the school starting Aug 7th, 2023 and underwent the Inculcating Joyful Reading training program . Neha, Program Manager, JoR India mentored her throughout the year. Vani’s duties included:

  1. Maintaining the library
  2. Maintaining Registers
  3. Conducting the structured library hour
  4. Conducting library activities and Interactive read aloud sessions
  5. Coordinating volunteer activities. 

What is Interactive Read Aloud: It is a read aloud session for similar levelled children which involves interaction with children by getting their inputs with respect to understanding the story, prediction of the story, discussing on why certain things occur. This helps with developing critical thinking, understanding how to read a book and comprehend, along with the improvement of reading skills.

Library periods were incorporated into the school’s daily schedule, with one hour dedicated to library activities for each class. JoR volunteers , volunteered once a week and conducted Interactive Read Aloud sessions and helped  struggling readers. Ms.Jenny Snehalatha devised a curriculum, focusing on phonetics and tailored approaches to improve reading proficiency. Since children’s reading abilities can differ irrespective of their grade level, this curriculum aims to enhance their reading skills by providing diverse learning opportunities and nurturing their creativity.

  • Jenny teaching the phonetic curriculum
  • Harini doing interactive read aloud session
  • Going over the library rules

With a six-day school week and 6 library hours a week, JoR volunteers and the librarian collaborated to ensure comprehensive coverage. The JoR team taught reading concepts formally during their volunteer hour. The librarian reinforced by repeating the reading concepts present in the curriculum again for two classes. The rest of the three classes for the week was allocated for structured library hour. Various activities were employed to enhance English fluency and reading skills amongst the students.

JoR volunteers Jenny, Sailaja, Shiney, Jyothsna doing reading level assessment.

A structured library hour involves the children taking books according to their reading level, doing focussed reading for a designated period of time and doing a small post reading activity once they finish reading their book. The librarian helps by going around and answering questions from the children.

A few employees from CASPIAN visited the school to volunteer conducting reading sessions with the children now and then.

One of the JoR’s goal was to engage the corporate community to contribute their time and interact with children. The goal was to help with the mentorship of the children through the interaction with professionals. JoR encouraged the employees of CASPIAN to come volunteer @ the Madinaguda school whenever they had time. The idea was to create an impact in shaping the lives of children in the long run over a few years of time .

The Madinaguda Transformation

Are you curious to know the outcome with all of these efforts? Then read on. Two reading level assessments were conducted – one at the beginning and one towards the end of academic year to understand the progress.

Understanding the levels : The levels are Green, Red, Orange, White, Blue, Yellow known as GROW BY leveling system from Hippocampus Foundation. Green is the lowest level (a picture book with 1 or two sentences per page) and Yellow is the highest level (novels). A student who is unable to read sentences, words or alphabets is called a struggling reader/beginner.

The graphs depict the distribution of classes along the x-axis, with the corresponding percentage of students at each level represented on the y-axis.

Reading Level Assessment 1

O

OBSERVATIONS

  1. The first reading level assessment took place in July/Aug 2023
  2. In the first assessment 50%+ of children in every class were struggling readers.
  3. The rest of the children were only in the Green or Red level for the most part in all classes.

Reading Level Assessment 2


OBSERVATIONS

  • The second assessment of reading proficiency took place in March 2024.
  • Significant Reduction in struggling readers across all classes was seen.
  • And few children had also moved up levels to Orange, White and Blue.

Reading level improvement


UNDERSTANDING THE LEGEND
(*) -2 (blue bar), -1 (brown bar) : Indicates a decrease in level. This means that data wasn’t taken right at the start. Ignore this .
(*) 0 (Yellow bar) : indicates no change in level
(*) 1,2, 3, 4  (Green and up) : Indicates the number of levels the children moved up respectively by 1,2,3,4 levels

OBSERVATIONS

1)  4th – 59% went up a level or more. Struggling readers reduced from  47% to 27%
2) 5th – 38% went up a level or more. Struggling readers reduced from 67% to 18%
3) 6th – 73% went up a level or more. Struggling readers reduced from 63% to 6%
4) 7th – 74% went up a level or more. Struggling readers reduced from 87% to 23%

When we first began volunteering for Madinaguda School it was disheartening to see that many of the children didn’t even know to recognise alphabets. We started our sessions every week with Phonetics laying strong foundation for their reading abilities. Over the course of 6-8 months their improvement was remarkable,we witnessed their progress from struggling with alphabets to reading simple words and gaining confidence in their reading abilities. The joy of reading is evident in their smiles and enthusiasm during our sessions. As volunteers we are proud to have played a part in nurturing their love for learning and it has been a truly rewarding experience for all of us. Shiney Babu Padamadan , Volunteer JoR India

When the journey began, some students faced challenges in alphabet recognition and word reading. The remarkable decrease in struggling readers across all classes can be attributed to the implementation of various strategies including reading level assessments, structured library sessions, a basic English curriculum, and personalized assistance for struggling readers. Notably, 6th and 7th graders demonstrated accelerated progress, with a higher percentage advancing by at least one reading level. This underscores the effectiveness of systematic reading initiatives and tailored support for struggling readers.

Here are the detailed reports for the Madinaguda school project

  1. August 2023 report
  2. SEpt Oct Nov 2023 Report
  3. Dec 2023, Jan & Feb 2024 Report

Madinaguda anniversary event:

In commemoration of the triumphant impact of the comprehensive library program in instilling a love for reading among the young learners, the Madinaguda anniversary event unfolded with grandeur. The occasion was adorned with an array of enriching activities, including captivating story narrations, creative story writing sessions, and an engaging general knowledge quiz centered around the literary treasures the students had delved into throughout the year.

What truly marked the event was the transformative impact it had on the children. Those who once shied away from public speaking now eagerly took to the stage, pouring their hearts out in a captivating skit performed entirely in English. Despite grappling with occasional mistakes, their earnest efforts shone through, resulting in a spellbinding performance. The sheer zest and fervor with which they participated left the JoR team awestruck and brimming with pride. Witnessing the students radiant performances and wholehearted involvement filled everyone with an overwhelming sense of elation and contentment.

  • Story narration
  • GK Quiz
  • Skit

Anniversary event and prize distribution at madinaguda

  • The team that did it all

Finally the heartwarming words from Sailaja Nistala a long time JoR volunteer, sums up every volunteer’s feeling

The most unforgettable and endearing experience has been to see kids who could hardly pronounce syllables, actually reading out aloud a story within one year….that’s what’s sums up my experience of working with kids studying in Madinaguda school.
I am very proud of the work that we as JoR accomplished in one year. My confidence enhances with the appreciation of the friend and relatives, whenever they are shown the video of kids reading in Library. It reminds me of the impact that can be brought by a couple of volunteers working with passion and empathy! There is a lot that need to be done.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep” – Robert Frost

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My Journey @ Joy of Reading

Author: (Giri Smruthi, Bengaluru, Intern 2023 June, )

During my summer break I was looking for an internship with a non-profit organisation, and when I happened to come across Joy Of Reading, I immediately knew that I had met a perfect match for me. As an English major student, I always had a penchant for reading. When I realised the opportunity that was waiting in front of me, to pass down the magic of reading to the children, I had to absolutely sign up. JoR was something different, quite unique in their aspirations; and as an avid reader, I felt a strong connection with their ideas of service. Their aim of developing reading habits in children and in turn improving literacy really resonated with my spirit.

I had the wonderful opportunity to work under the guidance of Mrs. Harini Raghavan Ma’am, and the least to say, it was quite an enriching experience. I was assigned to the documentation department under which I was able to aid in developing a systemic tool for metric collection for the Library Standard Operating procedure project for the TSWREIS Schools, Government of Telangana. I also took part in enhancing library materials, such as activity planner. While working on this, my previous experiences acting as a background helped me to provide ideas to make the planner as fun-filled and holistic as possible. I had to research and brainstorm to come up with the optimal activities in the order of increasing difficulty. I am glad to have undertaken these tasks as they enhanced my creativity and critical thinking skills.

As part of the operations department I was given the scope of sorting and classifying books according to levels. Through this, I was able to learn about the various classification systems and sorting styles of books in order to help in the beneficial upgrading of reading skills. Moreover, I also able to work with the program manager Ms. Neha, who was sweet and helpful while showing me the ropes.

As a member of the training department I took up the role of acting as a volunteer in training sessions. One of the training sessions I had attended provided me with eye-opening encounters. From assisting Mrs. Harini Ma’am in guiding the librarians of TSWREIS through various interactive sessions, I was also given the opportunity to present a part of the activity planner I contributed to in developing. This gave me a better perspective applying the learnings on the fieldwork, and communicating during training sessions also helped me to strengthen my interpersonal skills.

My favourite part throughout the month-long period of work was to interact with students of Madinaguda Government School. I could achieve this via assisting in reading level assessments, which deepened my understanding of the classification system and operating it in the practical arena. We conducted interactive library sessions to encourage reading amongst the students. I felt completely satiated in the spirit of service to the society through connecting with the students about the wonderland of stories. With the help of games, cultural activities and interactions, students and I bonded well and I could feel them developing an interest in reading. With the opening of the library, the students flocked in, and always were pumped up to explore the adventures reading held for them.

@Madinaguda school

Within this short span of time, Jor had occupied a special place in my heart. The team and my mentor were patient, understanding. My respect for them became entrenched whenever I witnessed how enthusiastic towards improving the students’ reading and learning habits they were. These experiences let me interact with people from various backgrounds, and expand my societal awareness. I was provided with a good career experience in relation to my course and was facilitated in growth as an individual.

Through my pathway in the organisation, I’m deeply grateful for the exposure and experience I could get, but more so for the bonds we made and the way my life has changed as a result. Now, I look forward to the time when I go back to the fieldwork, contribute to society and give back to the wondrous world of stories that whence I once found my solace. Drawing the curtains on my monologue, I would like to conclude with a small wish for a beautiful future: like I found a place to call my second home in Joy Of Reading, I hope to see a multitude of new faces joining us in the journey towards learning and discovery of creative spaces.

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Weaving our way to Narayanpet – Part 4

Previous blog entry – in case you missed

How did it all pan out?

The training was over and Alokit had its ground task force helping the schools with Foundation Literacy and Numeracy – supporting the schools in executing their program. A WhatsApp group was formed to encourage teachers to share their work during library hour. We received a lot of good updates from the schools. The Alokit team at ground, Amzad, Elizabeth and Venkatesh also monitored the library sessions happening at schools.

Check out the feedback from a few schools on how the books are being used

50% of students from 3rd class to 5th class completed Green level books. One of the students’ reached White level books. Keeping constant effort from teachers and students with maintaining the library period weekly twice in their timetable. Thank you so much teachers

**From MPPS Madwar**: Today I visited MPPS Madwar (Marikal complex). They are using joy of reading books in the last period and one of the teachers is guiding the students in between the reading. Thank you so much teachers for taking initiatives

Today I visited MPUPS Shashanpally and HM sir told me that on alternate days library books are given to students for half an hour. More than 50% students from 3rd and 4th classes are able to read green level books and these books helped students to improve their reading Levels.

Check out a few schools on how they setup their libraries

Some heartwarming feedback

Check out some of the read alouds by the kids. FOr the sake of privacy we have cut some portions of the videos where the private details are present.

MPPS Kothapalli
MPPS Kothapalli

From Amzad, Alokit
GPS UTKOOR, kids are reading library books in Library hour. I loved the fact that HM Srividya ma’am is giving books to kids consistently

MPUPS Mandipally – It was awesome to see the way teachers have maintained the record of the Library Book…

  • MPPS Madwar. Last period is the library hour
  • MPUPS Poosalpahad Marikal Complex, Ave number of books

Narayanpet holds a special place in our heart as this was our first CSR project (funded by Sakku group). It was also an inroad into a rural place in Telangana for us. It gave us insights about schools in small places with limited resources but with a great set of passionate teachers. Hoping to fund more libraries in the future in Narayanpet. Thank you for reading about our journey and Ciao until we share our next story with you.

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Weaving our way to Narayanpet – Part 3

Previous blog entry – in case you missed

The Finale

Books were handed out to the schools, but the training was yet to happen. It meant we had one more trip to Narayanpet. The next few days went in working with Amzad to figure out training dates,  the teachers who needed to attend the training , venue for the training and many more logistics. Thanks to the Alokit team at the ground headed by Amzad all the arrangements happened at a fine pace.

28th October 2022 – was the day of our training. We decided to drive over the same day and do the training and come back. Narayanpet was around 170km+ and to drive the same day meant we had an early start. But then the previous night we heard that there was a “paada yatra” (Foot pilgrimage) of a central opposition political candidate and hence we could not take the main highway route. But that did not deter us. The early start became an earlier start.  I took my car. Shiney, Sailaja, Pramod accompanied me and we started around 5:30am to Narayanpet for the training. It was a long drive and an adventurous one. We had to go through several side routes and through several village roads in order to avoid the traffic blocks. But the plus side was we got to see some really beautiful scenery interspersed with small villages. We reached Narayanpet around 9am and reached the venue for the training which was a government girls high school at Dhoolpet.

The session started after introductions and the headmaster of the school gave a speech on the importance of reading books and inculcating the reading habit in children. The training was a one day workshop, covering the topics of leveling books, interactive read aloud technique, basics of library management best practices, running classroom library (since most of the schools did not even have enough classrooms) and handling struggling readers.  The teachers were engaged during the sessions and found the sessions useful.

By the time our training was scheduled there was a change of the collector for the district (!!) . Shri Koya Sree Harsha also was supportive and came to watch our training for a few minutes. This motivated the teachers even more who realized that the management considered this very important. The collector distributed the books to all the schools that were donated by Sakku group (Thank you once more Sakku for enabling this). The training ended around 4 pm with the assurance from the teachers that they would put the books to good use.

  • Explaining our methodology to the collector Sri Harsha

The press report regarding the program from the collectors office

It was 5pm before we could leave. But ofcourse how could we miss the famous Narayanpet sarees and not treat ourselves after a long productive day. We were guided by the teachers to a local weaver who has been in the handloom industry for several generations. Sailaja , Shiney and myself after buying sarees left Narayanpet around 630pm along with Pramod who was happily sitting in the car and working while we were saree shopping. We reached Hyderabad around 10 pm in a happy mood after having a very productive day.

A happy group !!

You must be wondering ok what next – check out our next blog post from Narayanpet again.

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Weaving our way to Narayanpet – Part 2

Previous blog entry – in case you missed it.

Lights Camera and Action !

The day finally came when my first visit to Narayanpet happened. I met with Pramod and Venkatesh (also from Alokit) at the PV Narasimha Rao flyer on a September morning, embarking on a long ride to Narayanpet. Our first destination was the district collectors office.

We had an appointment with the district collector,  Smt Hari Chandana Dasari garu. Luckily we had a smooth ride and reached the collector’s office in time . We met with Smt Hari Chandana and had a fruitful discussion regarding  the project and the plan moving forward wrt distribution of books, training and the schools selected etc. She was very supportive and wanted children to have access to a good library and develop an interest in reading. She is a very dynamic person constantly working to improve the very many facets of the district.

We also met with a government officer , who would facilitate with the arrangement of training and the logistics of coordinating with the schools.

The latter part of the visit was the best as I did some school visits and met some wonderful passionate teachers. Here are a few glimpses from my visit.  

The first was a visit to the government school in Danwada, Telangana. The school teachers had come up with their own Teacher Learning Material (TLM) that would help facilitate building strong concepts of fundamentals on Literacy.

  • Children answering questions enthusiasitcally
  • FRY words
  • Teacher learning material
  • The head master interacting with children
  • Teacher learning material

The headmaster of the school was very supportive of Alokits FLN (Foundational literacy and numeracy )program. He showed us the monthly reading and writing assessment exams prepared by the teachers to continuously evaluate children and figure out the improvement strides. The school meticulously also prepared course content to address the gaps in student fundamentals. What I liked most was the headmasters involvement of the community which includes the parents as well, to support the study plan of the children.

With the teachers and headmaster of Dhanwada primary complex school. Pramod and Elizabeth from Alokit are also with us.

Narayanpet has some schools that cater to the tribal areas as well. One such was the Manipur Thanda. A Thanda is a clustered settlement or community of Banjaras (the local tribe present).

  • The multi grade multi level classroom.
  • Pramod, Ms. Radhika (teacher) , Elizabeth {Alokit), Amzad (Alokit) at Manipur Thanda school

There is only one classroom in the school with children from the first to fifth grade. Alokit has trained the teachers to do level based teaching for both Math and language. This means the children irrespective of the grade they belong to, are grouped based on their English knowledge and math knowledge levels. And the teacher teaches each group according to their level. Here Ms. Radhika has been religiously
following the technique and the children are happy learning under her.

Next we visited Kamsanpally where we met Ms. Swetha and the HM Mr. Kistaiah. Here too we saw good TLMs created by the teaching staff and an enthusiastic principal who is devoted to the improvement of the foundational skills of the children. The training and support from Alokit has helped these schools to be innovative with their methods of teaching.

Finally the D Day arrived – the formal inauguration of our libraries happened on 21st Sept 2022.

The school opted for an in classroom library due to lack of space and had created a beautiful Joy of Reading nook. The children present were so excited about the books and were waiting for the library to be inaugurated.

Ms. Hari Chandana Garu – District Collector of Narayanpet graced the occasion and inaugurated the library at the school in Baherpet, Narayanpet . The collector arrived and engaged with the students regarding the library and made sure the children also cut the ribbon along with her thus formally inaugurating the library. Here is a tweet from her supporting the initiative

  • Smt Hari Chandana garu
  • The DEO interacting with the team
  • Children interacting with the collector

Yours truly was asked to light the lamp once the collector left and perform a small pooja praying to the supreme power for the success of the endeavor and beautiful beginnings. The teachers, children and I recited a sloka (prayer verse) on Goddess Saraswati (the goddess of learning) jointly and threw open the library .

  • Paying obeiscances to the supreme
  • The library thrown open for all
The Alokit team that worked on the ground (Pramod, Amzad, myself and Elizabeth)

Check out the next part for the rest of the Narayanpet journey

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Weaving our way to Narayanpet – Part 1

How it all began?

One day during Feb/March 2022 Sai Pramod, from Alokit called me to talk about the Ankuram project in Narayanpet, Telangana that aimed to work on the Foundation and Numerical Literacy in around 55 schools, spanning multiple districts and mandals.  As part of the same, they also wanted to establish libraries in schools and hence the call to Joy of Reading.

Narayanpet is a relatively new district located in the Southern part of Telangana and shares borders with Karnataka and Maharashtra. Its about 170km from Hyderabad

Fun fact: : Narayanpet is famous for its handloom industry and the Narayanpet sarees are popular throughout the state !! In case you are wondering about our title 😊 .

Ankuram was a large project and involved working closely with the education department of the government in order to see good results. Towards end of April an online meeting happened between Joy of Reading, Alokit and the government education official.  The demographics of the schools, criteria for selection of schools etc was discussed. The initial target was to setup libraries atleast for around 20 schools across the different mandals.

Talk about coincidences or the universe conspiring to make things happen  – Our first corporate sponsorship allocation came through in March 2022 as well when the Narayanpet project came our way.  Narayanpet district schools required English story books in the lower levels.  So we started working with wholesale suppliers, for books
that would be fun and easy to read and would attract a child to pick up the book. A set of 91 books was finalized for each school. It consisted of a mix of Pepper series, Early Grade Reader series, Funny Photo Phonics, Read Along stories, Rabindranath Tagore story series, Bruno series, and a few Information books (Great Junior Encyclopedia, 200 Facts and Questions on various topics).  Lots of coordination has to be done to get them to our storage space which was in a narrow steep gully.

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Thanks to Sakku group who enabled funding of books for 20 schools in Narayanpet.

Time of several volunteers was spent in sorting and labeling and packing these new books. The books were packed separately for each school with carton boxes procured from various recycle suppliers. It was a back breaking effort literally !!

Pramod then came and took the whole bunch of boxes in his car and took them to Narayanpet on one of his visits, thus transporting the books without incurring any transport costs.

 It has always been the selfless efforts of several volunteers who are responsible for the very many behind the scenes effort in pulling together a project. When it takes a village to educate a child imagine how many it would take to educate a village full of schools !! Check out our next part on what happened thereafter.

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Coming together for a cause

Dear friends

It has been a long time since we connected with you. Hope all of you are doing fine! The two years have gone past us in a whiff. We’ve experimented new ways to help children read, owing to the pandemic – but some of it has probably become the norm now! (Another day another post on these musings). We formed new partnerships as the year began and our mission to spread the joy of reading has been going in full throttle.

With monsoons setting in Hyderabad, July 2nd was yet another chilly, wet and cloudy day. But that did not stop us from celebrating our sponsors, our volunteers and our partners who have been with us in our journey. Early in the morning on Saturday, our team proceeded towards Golkonda Fort to reach Bright Horizon Academy, a school in Mohalla Ghanj. It was a day with multiple things going on and we started it with our training “Inculcating Joyful Reading” for four of our partners. The day also included recognizing our volunteers and corporate sponsor and distribution of books to partner schools. Enjoy the virtual tour of our celebrations that day.

Enroute to BHA. BHA school building on the right

The morning started with our training for about 30 participants. I will write separately on the details of our first in-person training of the academic year. As I was handling the training in one of the rooms, there was a buzz of activity going on the other side. With Sreekala (new addition to the Joy of Reading family) leading, Apurva, Vamsi, Samanvit were getting everything ready for the upcoming event – final checking of the books to be distributed, verification of certificates to be distributed to our volunteers, coordinating with guests on direction to venue, etc.

Our volunteer force  headed by Sreekala -> Samanvit, Sreekala, Vamsi, Apurva

We had partners from four different organizations attend our training and the event. Naresh, Chakravarthi and Divya from Amma Social Welfare Association, Praveen and Prashanth from Hope Orphanage, two schools run by Sahayata Trust and teachers from our host Bright Horizon Academy (BHA). We had ear marked around 250 books to each school. And as you must know by now, we do not stop with just giving books but go a step beyond, and help schools understand how to run a library, and also techniques that help with inculcating reading systematically in children.

Come noon, guests started trickling in for our celebratory event. First, our little champs from Bright Horizons Academy who volunteered for us assembled. Representatives from our corporate sponsor arrived shortly- namely, Ms. Sadhana, Director R&D, CSR of Sakkugroup , Ms. Prienca and Ms. Gandharva . We were also joined by Mr. Azharuddin Mohammed, Director of Challenger Stem Schools of Sahayata Trust. It was time to recognize and celebrate everyones effort in helping us in our mission.

SakkuGroup was our biggest corporate sponsor this year who believed that reading is an important part of a child’s growth. Ms. Sadhana inaugurated the event with a brief talk on their company’s support for various causes and with specific focus on education. She mentioned that they believed and liked that Joy of Reading was making an impact in the field of education with its focus on enabling and developing a reading habit in children. She proffered her company’s support in Joy of Reading’s endeavors.

Thank you so much Ms. Sadhana. The money that Sakkugroup donated will go into buying various levelled books for around 20 schools. We and our partners express our heartfelt thanks to you and your organization.

Distribution of Books by Sakkugroup to BHA, Hope Orphanages, ASWA Foundation, Challenger Schools – Shaheen Bagh and Kishan Bagh

Mr . Azharuddin talked about the partnership between Sahayata and Joy of Reading. He also shared his life experiences and how reading impacted his own journey from being a boy from a rural background to becoming the head of multiple schools.

Sharing is what we have been taught to do all our lives. It’s the same philosophy when organizations involved in philanthropy joined together as well – sharing available resources with each other . Ms. Farida, principal of Bright Horizon Academy had given space in her school to Joy of Reading to store its books and conduct its sorting and packing operations. She did not stop there. When we needed help to record some training videos, she sent some of her wonderful little champs from the school to help. We showed our small appreciation to these little champs and Ms. Farida.

BHA LIttle Champs with Ms. Farida, School Principal BHA

It was then time for lunch sponsored by Sahayata Trust. The guests mingled and enjoyed Vegetable Biriyani, one of Hyderabad’s delicacies.

Sakku Groip, JoR, Sahayata Trust, BHA

During lunch we were joined by Adarsh and Aradhya Sriram who attended the event amidst their very many classes and school programs. Kudos to both for conducting and driving a book donation drive at their community complex. The children worked on flyers and communication on their own, with help from their mother Geetha . Together they collected around 700+ books for Joy of Reading which were also distributed as part of the event ! Our small token of appreciation to both the kiddos.

Sriram (father of kiddos),Harini, Aradhya, Adarsh, Sreekala

Finally here’s to Apurva Gadde, who had been our go to volunteer for all and sundry. She had stepped up at multiple instances during our book drives and ferried books from donors to our store. She was also the photographer of the event providing us these lovely captures. Our small appreciation for her invaluable contribution to the org. Thank you Apurva!

Farida mam presenting Apurva with a token of appreciation

There is a proverb that says “It takes a village to raise a child.” Indeed! It’s not just us who are involved in the mission to spread the joy of reading. From young to old, non profits to corporates, students to teachers – multiple people are involved to get this going. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported and continue to support us in our journey. This wouldn’t have been possible without you.

Three cheers to all of us !
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Beating Covid – Our biggest Online Training Event

2020! What a year! However, the human race continued to think out of the box to move on and not be defeated by an invisible virus. JoR was no exception. We had one of our biggest online librarian training events conducted during Oct 2020 for the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Schools (TSWRS) schools. Check below to know more details.

Inculcating Joyful Reading

Joy of Reading (JoR) had conducted a pilot program (Structured Reading Program) during the academic year 2019 – 2020 at TSWRS Narsingi. There was a wealth of knowledge and learning from the pilot. We then drafted it into an experiential workshop for both librarians and English teachers. 

During the academic year, 2020 – 2021 TSWRS inducted a lot of new librarians for all their schools. The new librarians needed to be trained in library management and be provided with guidance to develop a reading interest in children. TSWRS approached JoR for an in-depth training program for their librarians. There were about 170+ schools with around 180 teachers who needed to undergo the training. 

JoR conducted a two-day online workshop “Inculcating Joyful Reading”, for two hours per session. Exercises and lectures were tailored to suit the online medium. The librarians were assigned prep work to complete before they attended the training, and were given short exercises during the training to assimilate and work on applying the concepts.


Goal: The aim of the workshop was to promote holistic reading development in children systematically.  It aimed to teach techniques to both librarians and English teachers that could be incorporated in their daily teaching or operation routine

 Workshop Synopsis

  • Basics of library maintenance (Making the library an attractive place to spend time)
  • Techniques – Measuring Reading Levels, Interactive Read Aloud
  • Role of Librarians.
  • Application of Learnt techniques 
  • Managing Struggling Readers
  • Everyday Reading Time.

The training was conducted on Oct 27th, Oct 28th for around 90 librarians, and another session was conducted on Oct 29th, Oct 31st for another 90 librarians. Despite being online, the training was very successful in keeping the attendees engaged and interactive.  Questions were asked and answered, and thoughts were expressed over the chatting medium.

Harini Raghavan, Joy of Reading, Board Member conducted the training. Three other volunteers – Shiney, Sailaja, and Vandana helped conduct the simulation of ‘Measuring Reading Level ‘ Scenario exercises.
It was a meeting full of librarians and their role was explained along with best practices to maintain a library.
Techniques were explained to help overcome the frustrations experienced by children when being asked to read.

At the end of the workshop, a free flow discussion ensued to discuss the next steps and feedback on the training.

Training Effectiveness

116 respondents replied to training effectiveness survey
Training delivery – 4.35 / 5
Training Content – 4.6 / 5

The Plusses – Verbatim Comments

  • Excellent Programme as most of our librarians are newly recruited the training session is very useful
  • These sessions were very much useful and inspiring for newly joined librarians like me. 
  • Training is very useful for us
  • A wonderful training session was given by Harini madam. We learnt how to inculcate the students towards reading and also how to motivate the children towards non-academic books.
  • Nice training l have learnt loud reading. How to read loudly technique is for useful struggling children.
  • The training session was very useful in getting familiar with the methods for improving reading skills among the students
  • Please interact and give training and healthy discussion to our English lecturers and school section English teachers along with librarians please involve them also 
  • It is very useful. In that training session, we learnt a lot of things it is very useful for all the students…
  • Thank you for this training. we learn how to assess the children and they are also showing to listen read and write the stories. Thank you, mam
  • It was a very good session and it was very comfortable
  • The training is good, it is helpful to assess the students reading level systematically and the books provided are according to the level of the students which are suitable and helps to improve reading skills cognitively. 
  • The training session was very useful for us. learnt the importance of finding struggling readers and  maKing them comfortable readers 
  • Training sessions are very useful and in that, we learnt how to improve reading skills in the children and how to help the struggling readers. Thank you
  • The training session was good .it was very helpful to identify the students level according to that we can measure and improve them to level by level by providing different levelled books. and the joy of reading story videos are very helpful us to interact with all the students and to develop  their interest towards LSWR skills. Thankyou
  • Training session is very use full  develop reading levels in students
  • I felt so happy that it is helping every children in joy of reading. I hope training session should every year so that every library will develop.
  • Very useful and learned maintain library.
  • The training  program  was too good  madam,this is very  helpful  to us for measuring  reading  levels  of the students & leveling of story books 

Suggestions

  • The training session was good and need videos/audios telling the importance of libraries and reading .why they have to go to the library and read books.
  • In my view the training was conducted offline is a better way. Through online, we were facing many problems like network, audio etc.
  • Training session very useful but our students are stayed at home COVID 19 situation next academic year very effectively implemented by  us


Write to us @ joyofreadingus@gmail.com if you want to understand more on how to inculcate reading systematically for school going children. Till we meet you again ! Bye