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The Effects of COVID on Reading in Low-Income Schools

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Sanitising hands in the library

We have had our last reading and library lessons for 2021 as many of our little customers have already left for the holidays. So we thought that it would be a good time to reflect on the effects of almost two years COVID measures in our schools.

Whilst everyone has got used to mask wearing, hand washing, sanitising and temperature taking -and can’t deny that we should always have been doing some of this stuff – the biggest and most important effect of COVID has been the massive loss of learning time for most South African learners.

The NIDS-CRAM studies report that as much as a full year of learning has been lost by the majority of South African primary school learners since March 2020 due to school closures and ongoing school rotations.  At Cosmo City Primary where we are conducting our pilot study, children attend school 2 days out of a 6-school day rotation to prevent overcrowding in the classrooms.   The effect of a little one missing a day of school translates into 1.25 lost learning days and we have noticed a large decrease in the reading scores of the Grade 3 children this year compared to Grade 3 classes we assessed in 2018, before COVID.

But there are some upsides to the COVID regulations. We know that it has been much easier for us to manage the split classes of 20-24 children in the library rather than the usual 50-76 children. Every child has the use of their own tablet and headphones in the library and we’ve had some great, fun times during the year.  We’ve also had the benefit of, and enjoyed working with, some young people employed to help improve reading in schools – the government’s “Reading Champions”.

We found the most popular books in the library to be the read-along books for younger children, which makes sense as we decided to work with the foundation phase this year. The most borrowed book of the year was from the World of Reading, “This is Black Panther”, followed quite closely by the World of Reading’s “Spiderman”. In third place for most checkouts was the Nal’ibali story, “Crocodile’s Funeral”. The audio book “Secrets of the Silver Lion” by Emma Otheguy, read by Kyla Garcia was in fourth place for number of checkouts.

We conducted a mini trial of the Book Village app. this year and it was really exciting for us to watch a young learner in Cosmo City enjoying a reading lesson from a tutor in Cape Town.  The app is being further developed and we plan to begin our first large-scale trial in the 2nd term of 2022, and we can’t wait!

At the moment there is a lot of uncertainty about the new Omicron COVID variant and we don’t know how this is going to affect schools opening next year.  But for now I’d agree with the conclusion of the NIDS-CRAM study that “moving forward school closures should not be an option in the response to COVID -19”.

Sweet Reads by Sora That We’re Reading This Winter

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Sora Sweet Reads is OverDrive’s annual Summer (Northern Hemisphere) reading programme of children’s and young adult titles designed to encourage children to read all year round.  And with Winter in Gauteng and Covid numbers off the chain, staying at home and curling up with a good book is the safest thing you can do right now.

There are 29 children’s and young adult titles available for simultaneous use from May 5 – August 20, by all enrolled in the Book Village digital library, and we decided to try to read them all!

We started with four books for senior primary or young adult with boys as the main protagonists.

Sora Sweet Reads No. 1:  Boy Heroes

Homes by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung is a true account of a young boy growing up in a war zone in Homs in Syria, having moved there with his family to escape from violence in Iraq in 2010.  He describes how they continued their normal lives of video games with cousins, school, playing soccer interrupted by car bombs, fire-bombs, mosque, and school attacks.  I found the book quite fascinating, and I think adults and children alike will enjoy reading it.

We started listening to the audiobook, Ikenga written by Nnedi Okorafor and beautifully narrated by Ben Onwukwe, in the car one afternoon, and then spent the whole evening listening to the rest of it.  Set in the richly described Nigerian village of Kalaria, it is a coming-of-age story about a boy who finds he has magical super-powers through an Ikenga figure, and how he uses these powers to root out the many criminals in the town, and avenge his father’s murder.  I loved the vivid descriptions of Nigerian daily life and couldn’t help noting the similarities to South Africa.  

Hunter’s Choice by Trent Reedy tells of a 12-year-old boy, finally old enough to go with his father, grandfather and uncle on his first hunting trip.  It’s something he has been preparing for for years. He’s an excellent shot and knows all about guns, but now he has to decide if he is up for killing an animal.  The book has a bit of suspense, a bit of teen angst, and I liked the characters.  It will appeal to young readers who are interested in hunting and the outdoors, and as there aren’t too many books in this category, it’s a great addition to the library.

The final book in this collection with boy heroes is, It Came from the Sky by Chelsea Sedoti. This book describes “the absolutely true account of how Lansburg, Pennsylvania was invaded by aliens and the three weeks of chaos that followed”.  When one of 16-year-old Gideon Hofstadt’s science experiments goes wrong, he and his 17 year old brother blamed the explosion on extraterrestrial activity.  It Came from the Sky is a funny and easy to read account of the hoax, and how it developed its own life.  I loved the writing style that included interviews, blog posts and text conversations and think it will appeal to older primary school learners and young adults.

Stay tuned for the next sweet reads on our list!

Travelling in the time of COVID: Our picks for December’s reading list

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School holidays usually make us think about travel and adventure, but as we reach the end of this COVID year , the only sort of travel and adventure most of us will experience is to be found in books. And the great thing about the Book Village Digital library is that it never closes.

We have chosen 10 books from our library that will take you, wherever you are, to worlds of adventure, mystery and survival.

1. Jock of the Bushveld

A classic South African adventure, travel story of the smallest, bravest and best pup of the litter is Jock of the Bushveld (based on the film and written by Lesley Beake).  Set in the 1870’s when hopeful gold diggers are streaming into South Africa and opportunities, dangers and crooks lie around every corner.

2. Magic Tree House Collection

Readers from ages 6-10 can adventure through history with Jack and Annie with the help of spellbinding books and a tree house filled with mysterious powers.

3. Dogtective William Series

Children will love reading the thrilling adventures of 12 year old  South African, Adrian and his four-legged detective hero, rescue dog William, described as a cross between Hercule Poirot and Paddington Bear.  Read their adventures as they investigate rhino poaching in the Bushveld, diamond theft in Namibia and the theft of a celebrity pet in New York.

 4. Mission Survival Series by Bear Grylls.

Meet Beck Granger, fearless traveller and youngest survival expert, and follow his explosive adventures. From the Colombian jungle to the frozen wilderness  of Alaska to the Sahara desert, Beck Granger has the skills to make it out alive.

5. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

Audiobook

The heroine in this breathtaking tale of murder and mutiny on the high seas is 13 year old Charlotte Doyle who finds herself the lone passenger on the long voyage from England to Rhode Island in 1832.  

6. Wild Robot Series

Audiobook

What happens when technology and nature collide? When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island.  Can she survive in the wilderness?

7. I Will Always Write Back

Audiobook

The compelling, true story of the correspondence between a Zimbabwean boy and an all-American girl that started as a class assignment and developed into a friendship that changed both their lives.

8. Alone on a Wide Wide Sea by Michael Morpurgo

Audiobook

“I was there on the quayside to see Allie take her out for the first time, saw her dancing through the waves, and I knew I’d never built a finer boat.”

Inspired by the history of English orphans transported to Australia after World War 2, it is an adventurous, life affirming novel in two parts.

9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This is easily the most popular series in the library.

 Join Greg and his family on their surprise road trip in The Long Haul, or in The Getaway, when the family go on a tropical holiday, where everything that can go wrong does. 

10. The Adventures of Tin Tin 

Whilst we don’t have Tintin in our library yet, we just couldn’t leave him out.  Tintin is surely the most intrepid travelling book character of all time. Tintin and Snowy visited dozens of countries, real and fictional, in all five continents and even went into space during their 23 adventures. 

Photo by PerfPhoto by Perfecto Capucine on Unsplash

Who’s teaching who? 🤷🏼

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Little girl reading

2020 has brought us many new things. Not least a whole new lexicon: pandemic, lockdown, self isolating, social distancing, family bubbles, furloughing, flattening the curve, blursday, covideo parties, zoom bombing, mask shaming and (my favourite) covidiot! 

More importantly, it has brought to many the opportunity to find their ‘inner teacher’ as families around the world take to home schooling their children. 

😂

In our family, for the last few months, I have been helping to online homeschool my niece, Freya, aged 10. Fortunately I didn’t have to help with the maths (!) as Freya did that every morning with her mother, along with reading. I taught ‘special projects’ every afternoon.  This covered a broad and eclectic range of subjects from Greek myths, sustainable energy, Haikus and Tankas, world oceans… through to political portraits.  Freya’s school set the subjects (in line with UK year 5 national curriculum) and provided material for us to use. I supplemented that with material I dug out from the dusty depths of my memory, as well as online. 

If only the World Wide Web had been around forty plus years ago when I was 10! There is so much great information and many teaching tools available online. I particularly liked BBC Bitesize, DK Find Out! and National Geographic For Kids. Class preparation took me an hour or so each day, planning a mix of reading text, watching videos and interactive games and quizzes that Freya and I could do together online over a video call. 

Here’s what Freya has to say about the whole thing: 

“This year has been weird and complicated, working at home, social distancing, things being closed but I made the most of it…  The best things have been, having more family meals and my teacher being my auntie, Susan. Every day we had about an hour call on Whatsapp and covered lots of different projects and learnt lots of different things. It was so fun talking to her because I haven’t  seen her in a while! My favourite topic was probably learning about the different parts of flowers because I love flowers but didn’t know much about them, but now I know lots!” 

Like Freya, I loved learning about flowers, especially as I could run around the garden with the phone taking pictures of different stamens, pistils, sepals and petals for us to study.

 I confess I found the poetry a bit more challenging,  but overall it was a fabulous experience and I learnt loads: some things long forgotten since my school days, and so re-learnt, and some things entirely new and fascinating.  Perhaps finding more of my ‘inner learner’ than my ‘inner teacher’. 

Above all, I just loved spending time with my niece, albeit online, and will cherish our shared learning together. Very special indeed. Thank you Freya!

🙏

Our formal classes have finished now for the summer holidays. Fortunately for Freya, she will be back at school from September, in the safe hands of proper teachers. Teachers who really know what they are doing and for whom I now have a whole new respect!

Susan and Freya, 19 July 2020

Online Learning: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Tips from a Student in the Digital Age

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Cat sitting next to laptop

Photo cred: Tanya Kostina

I think I should begin with the fact that online learning is new to almost all of us.

To be taken from the comfort zone of face-to-face learning with educators and friends, to suddenly be thrust into the world of online learning has been daunting. 

The idea that one won’t have face-to-face learning is difficult to get to grips with, that being said there are many advantages of learning online.

Advantages of online learning

  • I am able to do lessons at convenient times. 
  • I can learn at my own pace – with pre-recorded lessons I can pause and replay, allowing for better clarity.
  • I feel resource sharing is perhaps the most powerful part of online learning. With screensharing during live lessons, I have access to my own unobstructed view of the content. 
  • It has decreased distractions during lessons (and I can’t hear my classmates talking in the row behind me). 
  • I can listen to one person at a time and mute unnecessary noise. 
  • I can study from the comfort of my own home instead of having to commute. This has freed up a lot of time for me to spend on other activities such as spending time with family and exercising. 
  • I feel that I take in content more efficiently online, meaning that I spend less time having to study.

With that being said, online learning has come with its difficulties.

Disadvantages of online learning

  • I sometimes feel removed and isolated from my classmates.
  • Staying motivated and on top of my work has been difficult.
  • I’ve experienced technical difficulties such as poor connection and glitchy software, which made submitting assignments or following a lecture a living nightmare. 
  • On occasion I’ve been easily sidetracked due to distractions in my home environment. 

Here are some ideas that I found helped me get through my first semester online.

Tips for online learners

  1. If possible, create a designated workstation that is quiet and organised. 
  2. Try and maintain a routine and create a schedule both inside and outside of learning (learning should take place when you are most comfortable during the day – don’t feel bound by a strict schedule).
  3. Set small and achievable tasks that must be completed each day. This helps build confidence.
  4. Try distance yourself from distractions. This includes turning off phones and notifications while working. 
  5. Do not hesitate to contact your online support team if you are struggling with technical difficulties. 
  6. Reach out to your classmates – remember that you are a part of a class/ bigger body of learners who are facing the same challenges as you. 

Ultimately my first semester, whilst having hiccups along the way, has shown me that online learning is nothing to be dreaded, but rather something to be embraced.

Book Village is joining the online revolution. Want to get on board? Contact us on our social media platforms for more information. 

Our Favourite Stories for Primary School Children

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Books in a row

Photo cred: Thingamababy.

Who remembers jumping onto mom or dad’s lap for bedtime stories? 

That feeling of safety, comfort, love and the excitement to find out what happened to Augustus Gloop after he ate way too many sweets!

Back then, before we hit double digits, we discovered the gift that reading gave us. The gift that allowed us to experience new journeys, feel an array of emotions, and build our understanding of the world. All this, through ink and paper. 

As Stephen King said, ‘Books are a uniquely portable magic’ and through them we became time-travellers. A combination of written words and our imaginations took over, transporting us to new worlds.  

The Reading Journey

For most of us, our reading chapter started with someone reading to us. We craved our storytime and eventually, through the stages of learning to read, we began to pick up the books ourselves. 

We read storybooks full of pictures, that went onto short chapter books.

When the chapter books became too easy, we picked up novels that would keep us awake at night. Our desire to read and learn more about the world and ourselves took over – we began reading more complex stories. 

And before we knew it, we were absorbing the information in articles and journals. 

Bedtime stories became a thing of the past – but for many, a new stage in life means that we have become the reader to our own little ones, who are eagerly jumping into our laps for their stories. 

Their reading journey is beginning, much like ours did, and the enjoyment of the stories is there found in both the reader and the listener.

Book Village Recommends

Short stories by Julia Donaldson and Eric Carle were always, and are still, treasures in the bookshelf. 

From a cat soaring above the clouds in Room on the Broom to the cunning little mouse tricking a monster in The Gruffalo, Donaldson has been able to capture her audience no matter what age. 

Carle’s books too are page turners that create laughter, curiosity and inspiration. The Hungry Caterpillar and The Mixed-up Chameleon are just two examples of his captivating stories.

Longer Stories for the Not-So-Little Ones

However, if you crave longer stories with twists and turns where your evenings leap from one cliff hanger to the next, Roald Dahl will never disappoint. 

The all-time favourite Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is full of adventure and left its audience with valuable life lessons – as did most of these books. 

The BFG, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach are just a few of Dahl’s books that should be in your bookshelf, along with stories by Julia Donaldson and Eric Carle. 

If these haven’t been added to your bedtime collection already, you should be adding them before you get the chance to finish reading this sentence.

Struggling to find a library or a book shop that’s open during lock down? Visit our Facebook page and view the pinned post to find out how to access free E-books from the comfort of your own home!

Memories of a Grade 7 Book Club

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Pile of several reading books

Image credit: Caro Wallis

About two years ago I held a weekly book club with interested Grade 7s at the wonderful Cosmo City Primary 1 library. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this awkward age group – my usual age to teach is Grade 3s, but I immediately found that I loved the group. 

They ranged from sophisticated teens to cute kids, with about the same number of boys and girls. The book club meetings were, out of necessity, rushed affairs – squashed in between eating lunch and the first period after break. 

It turned out to be the perfect length of time – there was always an urgency in the group with an atmosphere and energy more like that of an auction than a reading group. There were hurried recommendations or rejections from the kids, with a general scrambling for the most popular books before rushing back to class. 

The books they read were as varied as the children themselves and, like the children, some of them have stuck in my mind. There were the old favourites of Roald Dahl, Goosebumps and A Series of Unfortunate Events. Humour was a big hit – they loved anything by David Walliams and Francesca Simon. 

By far the most tatty, and so most loved, books in the library were the Diary of A Wimpy Kid series.

Some of the kids enjoyed non-fiction, and I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai really captured all their imaginations. The teen girls raced through books by Cathy Cassidy and Louise Rennison having moved on from their beloved Jacqueline Wilson and Judy Moody books of earlier grades. The biggest queue of both girls and boys was to read the South African story Whitney’s Kiss. 

So, from my home during lockdown, I’m trying to picture how things will be for this year’s Grade 7s.

There will be no group of kids squashed into the back office of the library for one – and probably the library will remain closed for a while due to the pandemic. 

What the Grade 7s (and other grades) will have though is access to a digital library through Book Village. 

Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need for access to literature and education materials in a digital format.

It may be that only children with their own devices at home will be able to read from the library until we are able to visit the school, but it’s a start. There are some really great books just waiting to be discovered; from learn-to-read to young adult titles in both ebooks and audiobooks. 

I can’t wait to see what the most “tatty” book of the digital library will be.

– Sarah

The 6 Benefits of Reading Aloud With Your Children

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Benefits Of Reading Aloud - Several Children's Books Laid Out On A Table

As parents, it can be difficult to know whether or not you are doing the best for your child – especially in the midst of a worldwide lockdown. In the past few months, parents have had to play the role of the homeschool teacher, the sports coach, the parent and everything in between.

Thankfully, one of the easiest activities to do with your child is also one of the most valuable skills you can teach them – Reading. Starting with reading to your child.

For a child, there is perhaps nothing better than curling up with mom or dad and being read to – despite whether they are just learning to read or reading on their own already.

And in the midst of snuggles and stories – that are great for both child and parent – some other fantastic things happen too!

So without further ado, here is a list of reasons why reading to your child is one of the best things you can do for their education this lockdown:

  1. Reading helps children to develop word recognition

    Even when your child is very young, if you read aloud and point to words on a page, they will be able to link written words with spoken words. This lays a foundation for learning to read.

  2. Reading helps to improve vocabulary

    When read to, the language children are exposed to is often more complex than that they hear on a daily basis. Studies have shown that reading aloud to your child can significantly increase vocabulary.

  3. Reading helps to teach grammar and sentence structure

    When they are being read to, children are able to hear more complex language and to also see how these complexities of language fit together. In seeing these structures regularly and in varied ways, children are able to develop a better understanding of grammar and sentence structure.

  4. Reading aloud teaches children to enjoy reading

    As a parent, you should make reading aloud a fun and safe space, to allow your children to associate pleasure and interest with this activity. As a result, your child will enjoy reading more and will be motivated to learn to read independently. They will become life-long readers and learners.

  5. Reading helps children to experience more success at school

    With all of the benefits of improved vocabulary, grammar and listening skills; reading helps children to become better learners and active listeners in the classroom. This results in higher academic standards and a deeper understanding at school.

  6. Reading helps to build emotional maturity

    The ability to express oneself emotionally as well as developing empathy is a skill that can be learnt through reading. When reading to your children, discuss themes in the book that may result in these skills.

These are just some of the many benefits of reading to your child, which spill over into multiple domains of their lives.

Want to make a brighter future? Start by teaching a child to read.

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