How Competition Creates Better Readers

The first reading competition at Kasadwini Atenaeɛ

Back in February, we held our very first reading competition at Kasadwini Atenaeɛ in the village of Asisiriwa, Ghana. The concept was pretty simple: the English teacher and Twi teacher at the junior high school each invited 5 of their best students to compete. We gave these 10 students each two books—one in English and one in Twi—and a week to read them.

At the end of the week, we held a game show-style reading competition in front of the whole school in Kasadwini Atenaeɛ’s amphitheater. Our director of operations, Quist, read questions about the English book (Kofi and the Crow by Peggy Appiah), and our librarian, Kumi, read questions about the Twi book (Sɛ Ɛbɛwie by Michael Boateng Amanfo). The ten contestants had to raise their hands as soon as they knew the answer in order to answer first and get the point for the question. The science teacher, Kyei, volunteered to be the spotter and call on whoever’s hand was up first. If a student answered a question correctly, they got a point by their name on the big whiteboard at the front. Before the competition began, the participants and audience were shown the grand prize, a small 8-gig tablet computer loaded with English and Twi books.

Junior high school (JHS) in Ghana is divided into three grades, called Form 1, Form 2, and Form 3 (roughly equivalent to American 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th grades). The contestants of the first Kasadwini Atenaeɛ Reading Competition were:

Form 1:

• Ofosu Gabriel
• Nsiah Princess

Form 2:

• Achiaa Stella
• Yaw Sarkodie
• Frimpong Fredrick

Form 3:

• Owusu Georgina
• Owusu Clement
• Oduro John
• Sarpong Bismark
• Kumi Maxwell

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Reading + Competition = Fun & Excitement!

First came the 25 English questions about Kofi and the Crow. Achiaa Stella got the first question right, but then didn’t get any more for the rest of the competition. Most of the students did really well on this section, even quoting two lines of dialogue from the book when prompted and answering questions about the illustrations. Only 2 of the 25 questions were declared “dead”, meaning no one could answer them: one about the color of the old woman’s outfit (purple) and one about the publisher of the book (Red Oak Limited; one particularly prescient student actually guessed “Untold International”). At the end of the English section, Oduro John took the lead with 5 points.

Next began the Twi questions about Sɛ Ɛbɛwie (“If It Will Finish”). The atmosphere palpably intensified—the contestants began leaning forward and raising their hands more rapidly, even interrupting the question to take a guess. Kumi looked visibly impressed by some of the quick answers about the objectively more difficult Twi book. As we progressed farther into this section, more students leaned back, resigned to the fact that they couldn’t win. Three Form-3 boys soon secured a clear lead: Oduro John, who had a nice boost from the English section; Sarpong Bismark, who answered with increasing confidence and accuracy; and Owusu Clement, who didn’t get a single English question correct but had earned 9 points in the Twi section.

With only three questions remaining, we had a three-way tie. The students in the audience sat tensely on the edge of their seats, struggling to contain their excitement and stay quiet. Connie, the English teacher, had her hand over her mouth, trying (unsuccessfully) not to show partiality. Noah, the headmaster, watched the scene carefully, impressed by how attentive and competitive this reading exercise had become.

Some of the teachers could only laugh incredulously at the scene; normally only sports matches were this raucous and fun.

Sarpong Bismark got the next question right. All his fans cheered and clapped and had to be calmed down—John and Clement could still come back. Kumi wiped the sweat from his forehead, chuckling nervously—he didn’t know it would all come down to the next few Twi words he had written. Sarpong Bismark snatched up the next question and the audience went crazy. He had come from behind and sealed his win. We had to call for quiet so we could ask the final question. Bismark got that one right too, just so no one could question his dominance.

The room erupted in cheers and stomping. Connie rushed Bismark, shrieking with pride. When he came forward to claim his prize, the whole school stood up and started chanting an old Asante battle cry. The teachers called out various improvised lines and the students shouted back “Yɛnnsuro!” (“We’re not afraid!”), waving their handkerchiefs in circles in the air. Some of the teachers could only laugh incredulously at the scene; normally only sports matches were this raucous and fun.

5 goals of successful educational/reading competitions

So what led us to spend the energy, time, and money organizing such an unusual event? Turns out we had several goals:

Goal #1: To teach through fun

I want you to think about a really boring teacher you had in school and call to mind a single lesson they taught. Oh, you can’t? Well then try to call to mind a single lesson by a creative, animated, or outside-the-box teacher. No matter how random the lesson may seem in retrospect, they made you remember it by making it fun. Stuart Brown, in his book Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, says:

“The state of play is one in which attention is focused exclusively on the pleasurable play activity, and memory fixation has been shown to be closely related to heightened attention and emotional rewards.”

Stuart Brown, M.D.

He points to many lab studies with animals, including one by psychologist Stephen Siviy, who states that “Play just lights everything up” in the brains of rats and posits that play enhances the retention of knowledge by strengthening connections in the brain that had previously been weakly connected[1].

If we know that play increases memory retention, improves moods, and makes time in the classroom fly by, then why don’t we use it more? The answer, sadly, is that the external or environmental factors which make up powerful influences in many societies (education ministries, religious leaders, success literature, parents, etc.) tend to put more value on quantitative performance and a certain aesthetic of success based on the idea that education is serious and needs to be taken seriously. These entities harmfully separate work and play and declare them antonyms rather than the allies they should be, thus robbing kids of the gifts play offers. That leads me to our second goal here:

Goal #2: To show teachers new techniques beyond the “learn-by-rote” model

Ghana declared its independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, a time when educators in most of the world didn’t have (or didn’t listen to) this data on the benefits of play in the classroom. Ghanaian schools still lean heavily on the “learn-by-rote” model where a teacher writes something on the board or reads it aloud and all the students are instructed to repeat it over and over until it’s pounded into their heads. True, sometimes lessons are animated, but many teachers still carry canes for beating students who don’t take their education seriously. The teachers themselves often inherit a sense of fear from the Ministry of Education to get test scores as high as possible because everyone’s jobs depend on it.

There are those trying to change the rubric and mentality to be more friendly to learners and include play. The Ghanaian dramatist Efua Sutherland recognized the importance of play in education in post-independence Ghana and even wrote a children’s book called Playtime in Africa, which was published in 1962. Her children carry on her legacy with the Mmofra Foundation, which vies for the Ghanaian child’s right to play.

As evidenced by our first reading competition, the teachers themselves can learn from the experiences of students at play and acquire new, outside-the-box tactics for getting them engaged and performing well.

Goal #3: To change students’ attitudes toward reading

Everyone complains that “kids these days” aren’t reading anymore, even in Africa. Goretti Kyomuhendo, a Ugandan writer and founder of the African Writer’s Trust, said at a 2017 panel discussion:

“Considering that about 60% of the African population are youth, so that’s really big, and the youth are not reading […] Young people want to live in the fast lane, and reading’s not a fast lane exercise.”[2]

Goretti Kyomuhendo, 2017

Later in that same panel, it was suggested that some kind of reader’s prize might need to exist, because writers have prizes as incentives to write, but readers aren’t given much incentive to read.

Although it’s true that the shift in technology has led people away from the medium of printed books, possibly the guiltiest culprit is the education system. Given that so much of schooling is based on academic performance, children are often not taught to enjoy reading. In many cases, kids are taught to hate reading because it becomes symbolic of boredom, the suppression of joy, a reminder of poverty, personal failure, and—in some contexts—physical pain. What reason do kids have to like reading?

With our fun reading competitions, we hope to give them one.

Goal #4: To change parents’ attitudes toward education

Being a rural, agrarian community without industrial farming implements, parents in Asisiriwa depend on their children as farmhands. In fact, it’s still a big reason to have children in the first place. Naturally, these parents have a hard time accepting that letting their children sit in a classroom to learn about hypotenuses and subject-verb-agreement is a better deal than getting their help making immediate money for the family, especially when they have to pay fees for this exchange. Truancy is common and teachers often don’t have the parents’ support in enforcing attendance.

About an hour after the Kasadwini Atenaeɛ Reading Competition ended, Kumi and I were walking through the village and heard a woman calling out to us. Kumi didn’t recognize her at first, but as we drew near, he said, “Ah, that’s Sarpong Bismark’s mom! The one who won the competition—that’s his mom.” When we approached, the woman greeted both of us in Twi and thanked us profusely for our generosity. She was beaming with pride in her son for winning a tablet with his excellent study skills. We told her in Twi, “Your son is very smart. You have done well” and she was nearly overcome with emotion.

For these parents, seeing immediate rewards for education is affirming: their sacrifice now is paying off, and will continue to do so for years to come.

Goal #5: To raise the threshold on how much effort students are willing to put into learning

A healthy spirit of competition raises the bar on what we think we’re capable of. As neuroscientist Tali Sharot put it, “We’re social people. We really care what other people are doing. We want to do the same and we want to do it better.”[3] Competing with and against others shows us what others can do and makes us wonder if we can do the same or better. It’s a great way to capture interest, change behavior, and elevate performance.

Of course, this could be used in a threatening or unhealthy way, but it can also be a form of play that unlocks all of play’s benefits. Stuart Brown identified “The Competitor” as one of eight play personality types, saying, “The competitor is a person who breaks through into the euphoria and creativity of play by enjoying a competitive game with specific rules, and enjoys playing to win.”

In other words, students placed in a healthy, fun competition with immediate rewards can not only learn better (and retain knowledge longer), but actually perform better than they even knew.

What’s next for Kasadwini Atenaeɛ and the reading competitions?

Our first Kasadwini Atenaeɛ Reading Competition was a rousing success. At the end, we told the whole school that they should study hard, because there will be more competitions like it. We would like to hold a variety of educational competitions at Kasadwini Atenaeɛ in the future, from reading and writing to art and performance. And we want to open it up to new age groups as well, namely the primary school kids in Asisiriwa who are displaying a huge interest in the extra lessons we offer at the center. If we had recurring donations of just $1,400 per year, we could put on 12 of these competitions at Kasadwini Atenaeɛ every year and create a whole new buzz around learning in Asisiriwa.

If you’ve been moved by this story, please click here to join our community of Untold Dollar donors who give just one dollar a month so new readers in Asisiriwa can gain a love of reading, reinforced by memories of healthy, intense competition and cheering each other on.

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Works Cited

[1] Brown, Stuart. Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. Avery, 2010.

[2] Goretti Kyomuhendo. “How to Reach the Readers: Publishing in Africa”. Africa Writes 2017, The Royal African Society, 2 July 2017, https://m.mixcloud.com/royalafricsoc/africa-writes-2017-publishing-in-africa/.

[3] Sharot, Tali. “How to motivate yourself to change your behavior”. TedxTalks, published 28 Oct 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp0O2vi8DX4