Gaoshi Xingzhong Primary School promotes reading teaching and wins the Reading Rock Award from the Ministry of Education

Xingzhong Elementary School in Taoyuan District, Kaohsiung City, overcomes the geographical restrictions of the mountainous area and adopts the "Reading for Vision. DRAMA Truth, Goodness and Beauty" program to integrate reading into campus life and local culture, leading children to gradually become "little directors" of their own learning from listening to stories and reading picture books to creating and performing. This year, it won the Ministry of Education's 115 Reading Rock Award for the first time.

The Education Bureau stated that Xingzhong Primary School is an extremely remote primary school where the Bunun and La'aluwa ethnic groups are culturally integrated. In the past, students faced standard textbooks and were easily distanced due to cultural and language differences.

Therefore, the school breaks the framework of "reading is reading textbooks" and focuses on "letting children become their own reading directors". It integrates drama education and critical thinking into the five major reading strategies of "DRAMA"; including D (Discover) to discover problems and themes from the text; R (Realize) to understand the character's situation and history. Historical context and behavioral motivation; A (Analyze analysis) establishes multiple perspectives through double reading and cross-text comparison; M (Motivate) transforms reading into scripts and picture book creations; A (Affect) uses stage performances, ethnic language tours and practical actions to allow reading to have the power to change tribes and society.

The school actively promotes rural children to become "big directors" of life reading. Principal Guo Jiding said that the school develops based on the concept of "tribe is the classroom and space is the theater". First of all, there is a natural transition from culture and oral tradition, and tribal elders are invited to speak about ancient times, and the oral history, plant wisdom and cultural rituals of the Bunun and La'aluwa people are transformed into learning materials. The lower grades start with "listening to stories" and picture books in the ethnic language, and gradually connect literacy and writing, so that reading starts from the life experience that children are familiar with.

The school has also created a "breathing reading theater" that extends reading to every corner of the campus. It integrates cultural legends into painted railings, story statues and corner seats, and combines mobile book carts with community associations to make the campus a learning place where reading can be done at any time and stories can be discovered everywhere.

Reading not only changes learning, but also allows culture to be seen. The school encourages students to use their mother tongue to shoot micro-films, which won the first place in the city. Guo Jiding emphasized that reading is an important force for rural children to understand the world and for the world to understand themselves. When reading connects with local culture, students can not only read and write, but also think, create, express and act.