Over 600 children from four deprived primary schools in the Effutu Municipality have benefited from a four-day programme to improve their reading skills and ability.
The programme was undertaken by the Ghana Library Board in collaboration with the America Embassy in Ghana.
The schools are Essuekyir Methodist Primary, African Christian Mission Primary, Ansanrudeem Islamic Primary and Winneba Municipal Assembly Primary.
Mr Thomas C Brown, Head of Cataloguing Department of the Ghana Library Board, urged the children to intensify their reading habit because their standard as compared with others in some parts of the country were very low.
He said the aim of the programme was to introduce the children to the importance of libraries and the need to be reading always to improve their vocabularies, adding that, reading is very important in education.
Mr Brown urged the children to improve upon their reading skills so as to improve their academic work to become good scholars.
The Coordinator of the American Desk of the Ghana Library Board, Mrs Bernice Kuttin-Nuamah, called on the teachers to be more innovative and encourage the children to be attending libraries to improve their reading skills.
The Effutu Municipal Chief Executive, Nii Emphriam advised the children to take advantage of modern technologies to improve their knowledge.
The head teacher of one of the schools, Mr Stephen Sunu Nuquaye, expressed concern about the poor performance of children from the school in the 2007/2008 BECE examination.
According to him, only one out of 46 children presented passed.
This, he said, was because the children were brought from some fishing communities around the Volta Lake and did not have strong foundation in education.
He therefore urged parents to provide their children with their educational needs, including learning materials, to help them improve upon their performances.
Miss Mary Aba Ghunney, Principal Superintendent of Education who deputized for the District Director of Education, thanked the American Embassy for the programme and for bringing library to the door steps to the pupils.