Book flood

Book flood describes the recent theory, tested in a number of countries, that being exposed to literature will help students learn English as a second language more quickly and effectively than more traditional methods.

Previously tested versions of the book flood program include:
* The Fiji Book Flood (1980-1981) (Francis Mangubhai)
* The Singapore REAP Program (1985-1989) (Warwick Elley)
* The Sri Lanka "Books in School" program (1995-1996) (Warwick Elley)
* Book-based literacy programs in South African schools (Cynthia Hugo)

In each of these programs children were learning English as their second language within a culture that does not expose them to much English outside school. In general, the programs involved the introduction of books to classrooms, alongside providing instruction to teachers on how to use them as a replacement for the usual English curriculum. In addition, the programs used a control group of schools which continued to teach the traditional curriculum. The trends found at the end of each program were similar: students whose teachers exposed them to literature and helped them to learn through that medium did a lot better than those who continued through the normal curriculum.

Warwick Elley, co-ordinator of the Singapore programme, said: "Literacy levels in Third World schools need a major boost. The Book Flood approach is one promising formula to bring about such a boost. The Sri Lanka program was not expensive. Books purchased in bulk reduced the cost to something in the order of USD 400.00 per school, for 100 books, plus a short training course and occasional monitoring. The cost of ignoring the problem is surely much greater than this, in the long term."

ource

* [http://ncal.literacy.upenn.edu/products/ili/webdocs/ilproc/ilprocwe.htm Literacy Online: Proceedings of the 1996 World Conference on Literacy]