World Read Aloud Day, an an­nu­al event cel­e­brat­ed glob­al­ly to pro­mote lit­er­a­cy and the pow­er of read­ing aloud, was cel­e­brat­ed in T&T yes­ter­day with Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly tak­ing part by read­ing to pupils at the Febeau Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in San Juan.

She read from a book ti­tled Br­er Rab­bit and the Tar Ba­by.

Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly paused sev­er­al times to in­ter­act with the pupils and ask ques­tions about the sto­ry.

When she was fin­ished, she com­mend­ed the chil­dren by telling their teacher that they clear­ly un­der­stood the sto­ry.

“I en­joyed read­ing for you. Do you like to read? Let me see the hands of those who like to read. And for those of you who don’t like to read, re­mem­ber, a read­er is a leader,” she said.

Aside from Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly, sev­er­al oth­er well-known peo­ple in T&T took part by vis­it­ing sev­er­al schools across the coun­try, in­clud­ing mem­bers of Guardian Me­dia’s team.

World Read Aloud Day was start­ed in 2010 by Lit­World, a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion ad­vo­cat­ing for lit­er­a­cy as a hu­man right.

The day aims to en­cour­age peo­ple of all ages—chil­dren, par­ents, teach­ers, and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers—to read aloud to one an­oth­er, fos­ter­ing a love for sto­ry­telling and strength­en­ing lit­er­a­cy skills.