Emmanuel Macron has decided to make reading a great national cause. This Thursday, March 10, writers went to schools to participate in the quarter-hour reading, organized at 10 a.m.
#10marsjelis: 15 minutes of reading in schools
On June 17, 2021, during the celebration of Jean de La Fontaine’s 400th birthday, Emmanuel Macron announced that reading would become “a great national cause“. The #10marsjelis day invites all French people to stop at 10 a.m. this Thursday, March 10 to read a few pages of a book of their choice for fifteen minutes. For this special day, writers like Érik Orsenna, writer and member of the French Academy, as well as the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer went to schools to participate in this quarter of an hour of reading, set up in schools, colleges and high schools in 2018 .
What measures to promote reading at school?
- A reading aloud contest. Since 2012, CM2 students have been able to take part in a reading aloud competition “Little reading champions”. 60,000 students are now concerned because since the start of the 2021 school year, CM1 students can also participate.
- A book for the holidays. Every year since 2018, this operation has enabled more than 3.5 million CM2 students to go on vacation with a free copy of La Fontaine’s Fables, illustrated by a contemporary artist. This initiative set up by Jean-Michel Blanquer aims to strengthen the taste and practice of reading among children who are entering school for the first time in college, in order to help them become familiar with books.
- The school library plan, with a budget of 10.5 million euros, enabled the purchase of 900,000 books and albums for 6,000 primary schools. The government wants to allow a hundred libraries to have longer opening hours.
Recall that theacquisition of the fundamentals in kindergarten and primary school is a priority for the government in terms of education.