“1 + N” Reading Plan: Reading Literacy Education and Exploration

Abstract

“1 + N” reading plan refers to the situation that students can get 2 credits for grade point in the first class upon the completion of reading tasks of different types and difficulties in the process of independent reading and participation in reading promotion activities. The target group of the project is students who lack the willingness to read, rarely use library resources and services but want to improve their reading ability. Credits are both the guarantee and reward of project implementation, and the orderly development and effective integration of reading promotion activities are the main parts of project implementation. The essence of the innovation of “1 + N” reading plan lies in that of the library concept of education through service, and is the profound thinking about library services for undergraduate teaching.

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Li, L. and Yang, W. (2020) “1 + N” Reading Plan: Reading Literacy Education and Exploration. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 8, 80-85. doi: 10.4236/jss.2020.86008.

1. Introduction

The international organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD) regards the proportion of students who have reached the highest level of proficiency in reading as the basis of a country’s future competitiveness, and emphasizes that reading literacy is a core that all students need to succeed in education, work and life in the future. Reading literacy has become a key indicator of a country’s soft power (Yu et al., 2017). In this international environment, some universities in China have begun to promote the reading credit system, such as general education such as reading and appreciation, introduction to classic works, in the library of Southwest Jiaotong University (Liu et al., 2018), and credits for listening to lectures in Shenyang Normal University (Wang et al., 2016). For college students, the meaning of reading not only limited to increase the reading quantity of mother tongue, improve the ability of language use and understanding in the stage of primary and secondary schools, but also to form a new requirement along with professional learning and career orientation, it is constantly reading cognition, evaluation, reflection in the process of reading content, and on this basis, construct and broaden their knowledge system. The students’ reading atmosphere was positively correlated with the school education quality relationship (He, 2017). By participating in reading promotion activities, college students can stimulate their interest in reading, improve their cultural attainments and increase their knowledge reserves.

Based on the in-depth study of reading literacy education and reading promotion, the library of Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University planned and implemented the characteristic project of “1 + N” reading plan, which made a bold attempt in the practice of reading promotion and received good results. In 2018, this project won the second prize in the first reading promotion case competition of Heilongjiang province, and was recommended by the Library and Information committee of Heilongjiang universities to promote it in the whole province. This paper will make a detailed analysis of this project for reference.

2. Interpreting the “1 + N” Plan

University library is an extension of classroom teaching and an important position of talent cultivation and cultural inheritance in schools, and its educational situation is more flexible (Qiu, 2014). Through the integration of humanistic education and professional education, college students’ understanding ability, writing ability, aesthetic ability and cultural taste can be improved to serve the general education and innovation and entrepreneurship education of undergraduate teaching (Wang, 2017), to make up for the single knowledge structure brought by liberal arts and science to students (Ji, 2014), and to shape students who are both skilled and professional to cope with the challenges of the job market.

“1” in the project, indicates that students read and submit reading notes, reading experiences and book reviews by themselves; “N” in the project is to participate in a certain amount of reading promotion activities; Use “reading growth record” to describe the process and purpose of “1 + N” reading plan. According to the quality of the completion of the task to assess the results, qualified can get 2 credits.

3. Operation Modes

The project guides and encourages college students to develop good reading habits in the form of practice and experience, and takes reading credits as constraints and rewards. Students can select reading books and reading promotion activities according to their professional backgrounds and interests, and then score points. The scores included reading independently and participating in reading promotion activities, each accounting for 50%.

3.1. Independent Reading

1) Library borrowing + intensive reading

Borrow at least 5 books from the library for intensive reading every semester, and submit 3 reading notes of more than 1000 words and 2 reading experiences of more than 2000 words. Each reading note or reading experience can be 10 points, less borrow a book deducted 5 points, this full score is 50 points.

2) Recommend books column + extensive reading

Optional extensive reading the recommend books at the library and information center official WeChat public account platform (WeChat ID: byndlib) every Monday by the column of the book hall, and reply to the book review on the platform. Each review is awarded 3 points, this full score is 50 points.

3.2. Participate in Reading Promotion Activities

Each time you participate in the reading promotion activities, you will get 5 points, and the first, second and third prizes will get 11, 9 and 8 points respectively, and the excellence award will be 7 points. The full score is 100.

According to the actual situation of the school and the previous situation of reading promotion, the reading promotion activities that this project can participate in include regular activities and thematic activities (Li, 2018). There are series activities of reading culture festival, reader service month, graduation season and welcome season, reading and enjoying summer and winter holidays, etc. And according to the students’ reading ability, each theme activity has three kinds of activities: entry level, promotion level and professional level.

1) Entry level reading promotion activities

The goal of the entry-level reading promotion is to get readers in the habit of reading. It is aimed at readers who have little or no interest in reading and who have little or no use of the library’s resources and services. The reading promotion activities mainly include the school’s brand culture activities, Wang Zhen grand lecture hall, the real person library that has been opened for six years, reading salon, big coffee study, the reading partners’ 21-day team reading qualification competition, reading marathon, book exchange, all kinds of lectures and training, etc.

2) Promotion level reading promotion activities

The purpose of the reading promotion activity is to improve the reading ability of readers. It is mainly aimed at readers who like reading but do not have strong reading ability and take advantage of the lack of skills in the library. Reading promotion activities mainly include Yunzhou cup topic sharing contest, reading recitation contest, reading cosplay, micro book review contest, essay competition, taking a book to travel, taking a book home for the New Year, as well as the star of readers, reading talent, the selection of scholarly dormitory, etc.

3) Professional level reading promotion activities

The purpose of professional level reading promotion activities is to improve the quality of reading, mainly for readers with good reading ability or some special skills. Reading promotion activities mainly include classics interpretation contest, school history explanation contest, book model design contest, bookmark design contest, poster design contest, literature knowledge contest, retrieval contest, reading promotion case contest, etc.

4. Implementation Effect

The project will be registered in the form of elective course of “reading literacy cultivation”. In the first phase, 90 students applied for the course, 69 of whom successfully got the credits, 11 of whom failed to participate in the activity after registration, and 10 of whom failed to get the credits due to their unsatisfactory grades. The project is based on the abundant collection resources, and constantly innovates to enrich the service content, which is highly consistent with the library’s reality and effectively improves the service level. Through the implementation of the project, the circulation rate and loan volume of books are improved, as well as the effective reading rate of WeChat account platform graphic messages. Effectively enriched the construction content of the second classroom, improved the construction quality of the second classroom, promoted the construction of campus culture, and well combined the first classroom with the second classroom. It has gained a good reputation in the field of collaborative education, changed the school’s traditional concept of library, and positioned the role, function and status of library in a new way, which has improved the image of library and won greater support for the development of library.

5. Innovation and Inspiration

The innovation of “1 + N” reading plan lies in introducing the credit reward mechanism into the reading promotion activities, which has greatly aroused the enthusiasm of students. Students received reading credits, and the library innovated its activities mechanism. At the same time, the project will effectively link all kinds of reading promotion activities of the library, which is conducive to a more diversified and systematic development of reading promotion activities, and finally forms a brand effect, aiming at achieving a good effect of reading promotion. In the process of project development, students, teachers, librarians and management are effectively mobilized to give play to their respective advantages and create a good campus reading atmosphere.

6. Conclusion

This study provides a new way of thinking for the university library’s reading promotion work, which has been recognized by the university map work committee of Heilongjiang province, and has been included in the routine work of our library. Meanwhile, it has also been recognized by the peers of other university libraries in China. In the process of reading promotion activities, we should first focus on the evaluation index of promotion activities to avoid the utilitarian phenomenon of participating in the activities for the sake of activities and participating in the activities for the sake of points. Second, we should extend the validity of the activity points. It is best to infiltrate into the students of different learning stages. Thirdly, it is necessary to establish feedback channels such as course evaluation and activity summing-up meeting. Only by establishing a smooth and effective information feedback channel with students can we better improve the quality of activities. Finally, the content of activities should be further innovated, such as reading passports, knowledge passports and other vivid, lively, but also has the function of recording the activity record manual. The university library should carry out a series of three-dimensional classics reading activities with characteristics, rich contents and various forms, carry out the fundamental task of establishing morality and cultivating people, help students improve their cultural literacy and create campus reading ecology. Leading the new fashion of campus culture has played an important role in the construction of campus culture.

Funded

This paper is a research projects of Periodical achievement of the reading promotion project of Chinese library society: “study on rural cultural construction boosted by university library reading promotion from the perspective of rural vitalization strategy” (Project Number: YD2018B29); Heilongjiang Provincial Department of Culture Provincial Art Planning Project “Research on Cultural Construction in Rural Revitalization Strategy” (Project Number: 2018D024).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

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