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FOCUSED: St Francis College pupil Siyabonga Sibeko reads an e-book on a Kindle donated to the school by the e-library project.PHOTO: VATHISWA RUSELO

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Nkabinde and 57 other Grade 11 pupils at St Francis College, a low-fee school in Benoni, Ekurhuleni, are taking part in a e-Library Project that saw Kindles donated to them to encourage them to read.

The school caters mostly for township children.

Kindles are e-book readers that allow users to read, download and buy books.

Each pupil was given a Kindle in July and they sign them out during the reading period. The library has a Kindle corner where pupils sit and browse through books. They leave the devices at school.

"When we had to come for media studies I would take out the same book week after week because reading was boring. The Kindle has made it so much more fun for me. One of my favourite books is Letters to my Children by Jonathan Jansen. It is not really a novel, but an inspiring book."

According to co-director of the e-Library Project, this is a non-profit initiative aimed at testing the use of Kindles as a tool for literacy development in under-resourced schools.

The devices are donated by corporate companies and have been loaded with the latest titles from local publishers.

School principal Dian Cockcroft said: "We have seen a real change in the Grade 11s. They are more interested in reading and the other grades are asking when they will be given the Kindles.

Siyabonga Sibeko said he was interested in non-fiction books, but before they were given Kindles it was hard for him to find them.

"I was not interested in reading because of that. There is a wide range of books to read on the Kindle.

"My favourite so far is A Long Walk to a Free Ride by Nik Rabinowitz." - monamat@sowetan.co.za

Comments

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Tue Jun 18 07:32:32 SAST 2013 ::

Sep 21, 2012

MommaC

Why? It is still written words.
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Sep 21, 2012

jerico

will they make kindles for math and science, because we know that learners struggle a lot with those 2 subjects.
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Sep 21, 2012

|Sinudeity|

Best move ever. No need to worry about textbooks getting delivered. Just download them. And yeah, there are hundreds of maths and science textbooks on amazon.
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Sep 21, 2012

Shredder

I always struggle to read eBooks. I prefer hard copy. :-D
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Sep 21, 2012

Plain_Truth

Wonder why there's always VERY FEW comments it articles to do with education and HUNDREDS when it's about sleaze. Sign of the times eh?
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Sep 21, 2012

Shredder

@Plain_Truth - Wonder why there's always VERY FEW comments it articles to do with education
==========================================================================
You know the Plain Truth. Let there be a sex article and you will see. If you want to see where everybody has gone, go to the "My husband had affair with brother's wife" article.
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Sep 21, 2012

|Sinudeity|

Shredder - Strangely today, the busiest article is the one about a flower being named after JZ :P
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Sep 21, 2012

Shredder

No, it's not. It is "My husband had affair with brother's wife" article. As usual such articles draw too much attention.
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Sep 21, 2012

Shredder

@|Sinudeity|

No, it's not. It is "My husband had affair with brother's wife" article. As usual such articles draw too much attention.
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Sep 21, 2012

|Sinudeity|

Shredder - Hehe, allright.

S3x sells ne :P
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