Login

Reading

Why Book Village offers a digital library

by

Apart from the Book Village App, we also provide our own digital library with thousands of children’s and young adult books for the learners and teachers to enjoy.

Reading for enjoyment has been described as a form of play.  It is a creative activity that allows us to experience other worlds, roles and feelings, in our imaginations.  The OECD in 2002 found that reading for pleasure in childhood is a better predictor of future educational success than a family’s socio-economic status.

From our experience many young South African children do not have any books at home, and so libraries are essential for them to access books to read outside of the classroom.  To encourage reading for enjoyment at any time, we have provided a digital library with thousands of children’s and young adult books.  The children love the freedom of being able to choose their own books, and a trip to the library is the highlight of the school week.   All the children at Cosmo City Primary are members of the digital library and can borrow and read books all year round if they have a device at home.  We’ve found that whilst most children do not have their own tablets, smart phones or laptops, almost all the children’s parents have a smart phone, and often let their little ones read stories on them at home.

We also want to encourage children to enjoy reading and listening to stories in their home language, and so we have added collections of the excellent Nal’ibali stories to the digital library.  We couldn’t agree more with the Nal’ibali idea that “Children who read and hear engaging stories in languages they understand are well equipped and motivated to learn to read and write.  They are also more likely to make a meaningful contribution to society.”

Frequently reading for pleasure and fun results in children achieving higher PIRLS literacy scores. (PIRLS 2006), but apart from that  – “The more that you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”  Dr Seuss

Photo by Catherine Hammond on Unsplash

Terrific Teen Fiction – Our Latest Binge!

by

One of the best things about being a primary school librarian is that you get to read any young adult book in the library you like and call it work.  We’ve been bingeing a bit on teen fiction recently, and here are some of the books we’ve enjoyed the most.

My daughter’s dog came home from doggy daycare carrying a large bone with a label tied on it that read, “Enzo’s first birthday”. She was incredulous that anyone would send home a doggy party pack, but I said, “Of course Enzo celebrates his birthday human-style, and if you’d read The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, you’d understand!”.   Narrated by the dog who has educated himself by watching TV and listening to the words of his favourite racing car driver, Enzo realises that racing is a metaphor for navigating tricky situations in life.  We were captivated by this book.

Of all the books I’ve been reading lately, The Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness is what I most recommend if you haven’t read it already.  We have a special anniversary edition in the library to celebrate 10 years of this award-winning trilogy.  The books are really gripping, fast-paced and original.   I was hooked immediately on the story set on a planet called New World where all living creatures can hear each other’s thoughts in a stream of images and sounds called Noise.  The novels feature Todd Hewitt who is forced to flee his town just a month before he is to become a man, and Viola Eade who is the only survivor of a group from a scouting mission that crash landed on New World. There are themes of flight, tyranny and war, cults, colonisation- and how that doesn’t usually turn out so well for anybody.

For a creepy, fast-paced read, try Five Total Strangers by Natalie Richards.  We read this book as it was chosen for Sora’s Big Library Read from Nov 1-15, 2021.  It is described as a “page-turning thriller that will keep readers guessing until the very end” (School Library Journal).  And it was just that!  I really enjoyed reading it right up until the end which I found to be a bit of a predictable let-down. But I’d still recommend it if you are looking to read a good teen thriller. 

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven has won literary awards around the world.  Described as “The story of a girl who learns to live from a boy who wants to die”.  The alternate narration by the main characters, Theodore Finch and Violet Markey weaves together their unlikely friendship that starts when they meet, both about to jump off the ledge of the bell tower at school.  It is a great read, quite gripping, that deals with important teen issues, and I particularly loved the characters. 

We’ll continue to bring out the youth in ourselves by reading the books that teenagers and young adults love best. 

Back to School Books

by
Reading Dr Suess

The summer holidays are coming to an end for our public schools this week, and unless you were lucky enough to get your Hogwarts letter by owl post, you probably aren’t anticipating a lot of magic at your school. But good teachers everywhere will be sure to take their children on many fun adventures during the year.  

Boarding schools provide the perfect setting for great magical or mystery adventures; parents are out of the way, strong friendships are formed and there’s always a villain somewhere in the mix. Most of us who have never been to boarding school, and attend ordinary, everyday schools, can only visit these schools through books. Whilst my sister and I devoured Angela Brazil’s boarding school stories and Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers as kids, they would be rather old fashioned for today’s young readers, and anyway there is much more exciting stuff to read.  Here are some of our favourites:

The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling first published in 1997, have since become an essential part of any childhood, with over 500 million copies of the books sold.  I think every child should be encouraged to read the books, or to listen to the audio books read by Steven Fry, which are excellent.

I absolutely loved Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson.  Two interwoven mysteries set in the private Ellingham Academy “where learning is a game”.  The main character, true-crime lover Stevie Bell is starting at the academy with an ambitious plan – to solve the cold case involving the kidnapping of Ellingham’s wife and daughter 75 years before.  The great thing about this book is that it’s part of a trilogy. The story follows directly on in The Vanishing Stair and concludes in The Hand on the Wall. And just when you think the adventure’s finished, Johnson comes out with another Stevie Bell stand-alone mystery The Box in the Woods. 

The young adult novel, Looking for Alaska by John Green follows the main character and narrator  Miles ‘Pudge’ Halter to boarding school where he goes looking for a “Great Perhaps”.  I liked the characters and enjoyed the pranks they pulled off together.  In the course of the book Pudge grows very close to his friends and becomes fascinated by Alaska. The description on the book jacket is accurate I think.  “Poignant, funny, heartbreaking and compelling, this novel will stay with you forever”.

The Spud series of books by John van de Ruit are a hilarious (slow -)coming- of -age story about John ‘Spud’ Milton and his antics with his friends at the elite boys’ boarding school in South Africa in the 1990s.  These books had a big following when they were published in the mid 2000s, and I think a new generation of children would still enjoy reading the adventures of Spud, his friends and eccentric family.

So remember, the first day back isn’t that bad!  Here’s hoping for a fun and exciting school year with lots of magic and adventures for everybody.

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

Have a Go!

by
Helping together

‘Volunteering is at the very core of being a human. No one has made it through life without someone else’s help.’ – Heather French Henry

The word volunteer brings to mind someone who goes out into the field and physically gives of themselves to help others. This can be done through looking after animals, teaching children new skills, building structures and so many more. And what a wonderful way to give back! According to the International Labour Organizations Statistics, it is estimated that there are 970 million volunteers worldwide.

There are so many benefits for those receiving, but also for those giving.

Individuals experience the development of new skills, being part of a community, meeting new people with similar interests, a gain in confidence, reduced stress and anxiety, extra endorphins and the ability to make a difference.

However, volunteering isn’t limited to being in a particular place at a certain time.

Virtual volunteering, especially now in the time of COVID, has changed this. It is an efficient, easily accessible, flexible and convenient way to help others and give back to your community.

Sites such as ForGood, Volunteer Match and Engage are great places to find the perfect form of volunteering suited to your skills, needs and location, whether in-person or virtually.

So, what about Book Village?

We provide our volunteer community with access to digital tutoring where they help learners from low-income areas learn to read for meaning and enjoyment. The children we help are from overcrowded and under resourced schools where teachers are far too overextended to support their learners individually. Human connection is an essential part of the learning-to-read process and so the Book Village app ensures that each learner receives one-on-one attention with a live tutor.

Along with all the positive benefits of virtual volunteering, the reading sessions on the Book Village app are no longer than 20 minutes each, which benefits our volunteers who are pressed for time in their busy schedules. It is up to them how many sessions they want to teach a day or week. There is no prep involved for volunteers in all reading sessions and tutors can teach a child to read on the app from anywhere in the world.

The Book Village app is efficient, measurable, easy to use, and convenient for all our volunteers and if you want to become a tutor and help our children learn to read go to https://bookvillage.co.za/ and sign up.

We would love to have you as part of our community!

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

The Effects of COVID on Reading in Low-Income Schools

by
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”.

Sora Sweet Reads no. 3

by

This time we read the books in the Sora Sweet Reads collection chosen for 9-12 year old readers.  All of these books are available for simultaneous use for members of the Book Village digital library until 20th August.

The first two we read were set in summer camps which are perhaps a right of passage for American children.  South African children might not be familiar with summer camps, but will identify with the themes and characters in these books.

How to (almost) Ruin your Summer by Taryn Souders. 11 year old Chloe Mc Corkle goes to Camp Minnehaha where she decides to try to learn cake decorating to earn money so she doesn’t have to ride a baby bike to middle school.  Of course, nothing goes according to plan in this laugh out loud, tween angst filled, action story!

In Just Like Me by Nancy Cavanaugh, three girls adopted from the same orphanage go to Summer Camp and are asked to keep a journal of their experiences. It is a funny, sweet story about a girl longing to fit in with her peers whilst discovering connections with her Chinese origins.

The next group of four books are in the magical or fantasy genre, and the book I enjoyed the most out of this group was The Year I Flew Away by Marie Arnold. This is a magical novel about 10-year-old Gabrielle who moves from Haiti to Brooklyn and discovers how hard it is to fit in as an immigrant. 

Maya and the Rising Dark by Rena Barron is a fantasy tale of 12-year-old Maya who goes in search of her missing father and finds herself part of her father’s bizarre comic book adventure stories.  It’s a great action adventure with diverse characters that will be easy for our children to relate to.

The next two books are Star Wars Choose your Destiny Adventures by Cavan Scott. The two chosen for Sora Sweet Reads were A Luke and Leia Adventure, and A Finn and Poe Adventure.  These are choose-your-own-adventure puzzle stories that I think would keep children entertained and would be good to get reluctant readers going. 

Skateboard Sibby by Clare O’Connor is about super skateboarder, 11-year-old Sibby, who has to move to a new town and live with her Nan and Pops after her father loses his job.  She’s a great girl character and there are some good life lessons and skateboard action in the story too.

I’m putting the next two books into the science category, even though Frank Einstein and the Space-Time Zipper by Jon Scieszkais definitely fantasy with crazy, fun inventions and great pictures.  The story is interwoven with some good science facts though, that bring the concept of space-time to life for young readers.

Biohackers by Leah Kaminski.

This is the only non-fiction book in the group.  It is a quick, interesting read that will keep the attention of readers in the 9 to 12-year age group.  It introduces the topic of biohacking and explores future possibilities with excellent photos and diagrams and clear, easy to read text.

Next time, in our final post about the Sora Sweet Reads collection, we will look at the comic books, graphic novels and books chosen for younger readers.

Young Adult Sora Sweet Reads 2

by

We’ve been enjoying reading our way through the rest of the young adult titles in the Sora Sweet Reads collection over the past couple of weeks.  These titles will be available for simultaneous use for all members of the Book Village digital library from 5thMay – 20th August.

Two of the books in the collection gave me some insights into events in history that I didn’t know too much about, and I really enjoyed reading them:

In the book, We are Not Free , the author Traci Chee was inspired by her own family history to create a story of the experiences of 14 Japanese American teenage friends, forced from their homes into incarceration camps following the bombing of Pearl Harbour during WW11.  The book is beautifully written in the style of interconnected short stories, and I think most young adults and adults will find it very interesting and moving.

I could not put Girls on the Line by Jennie Liu down.  Set in China in 2009 it is a fascinating story told from the alternating perspectives of two girls, Luli and Yun.  The girls leave the orphanage they grew up in when they turn 16 to work in an electronics factory winding up cables (in case you’ve ever wondered how this was done).  It describes how limited their options are when Yun gets pregnant with her bride trafficker boyfriend, and how they are trapped in a system that controls all aspects of their lives.  This book is a great page-turner for older teens and adults.

The next two young adult titles will appeal to older teenage girls, and if I’m honest I quite enjoyed reading them too!

Four Days of You and Me by Miranda Kenneally is an easy to read, well-written high school romance.  The book is narrated by Lulu with flashbacks from her friends, and describes four class trips taken over four years of high school.  Lulu and Alex start their relationship on the first class trip and the story progresses through the break ups and re-kindling of the romance over subsequent trips. Lulu has a full house of fashionable interests – she is a vegan eco-warrior, has a gay best friend and is a talented graphic comic book author.  I’m sure many teen girls will enjoy reading this book over the holidays.

In  The Year Shakespeare Ruined my Life by Dani Jansen,  Alison Green– desperate to be the valedictorian, thinks that agreeing to produce the school play of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will help her achieve this.  There are some funny moments and complicated teen misunderstandings and lesbian and pansexual relationships.  Overall it is an easy “ beach”  read – or in our case, a “tucked up under the blankets because it’s cold and we can’t go out because we’re isolating” sort of read.

Next time we will review the Sora Sweet Read titles selected for children in senior primary school.

Sweet Reads by Sora That We’re Reading This Winter

by

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!

Learning to Read with Levelled Readers and Other Resources

by
Spiderman reading

Most of us won’t remember the process of learning to read, but we will remember inching our way through the levelled readers we brought home from school to read to our Mums, with their baffling stories of snowy Christmasses, tobogganing, lots of tea drinking and pink iced cakes.

With schools remaining closed until mid February at the earliest, and likely to close whenever COVID numbers go up again, many children will probably spend a large part of this year out of school and so will not have access to their school’s reading scheme.

Why are reading schemes used in schools?

There is a lot of science that goes into developing reading schemes. The best ones are developed to allow for easy practise of the essential components of reading. Learning to read is not a natural process, and children need to be taught and practise phonics, phonemic awareness,  “sight” words, vocabulary and comprehension.  

But the good thing for children away from their schools is that all books will provide opportunities to practise their reading skills, and reading schemes should not be used as the only books available for children.  Whilst things have come a long way since Janet and John, and South African children will surely be more interested in the adventures of Lelo and Zazi (Aweh! From Oxford University Press),  the stories might not be motivating and interesting to all children. They should be given a wide range of reading material and choose what they enjoy. 

We have had a look at what is available to help teach your child to read at home:

  • There is a wonderful selection of children’s books to be borrowed from Gauteng Provincial Library on-line.
  • Collins have made over 300  levelled ebooks and worksheets available for free.  If you go to www.collins.co.uk you will find instructions on how to log in as a parent to access the content.
  • And aimed to increase young readers’ access to ebooks and audiobooks, the English Oak National Academy is providing a book a week from it’s author of the week.  They also have lots of excellent, free video lessons that you might like to try.

For teaching phonics we found some good free resources:

  • Feed the Monster, a free game from Curious Learning  will help little ones to learn their letter sounds.  This game is available in English and several other South African languages.
  • www.schoolroom.com has a good interactive activity to learn the phonemes.                                Fantastic Phonics have released a free digital edition for children during COVID times.
  • If you’re looking for great free printable phonic books, games and ideas for helping your child to read at home, go to www.themeasuredmom.com

Happy reading!

Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash

Sign Up To Be Part Of Book Village!

By signing up to become a volunteer, you will be among the first to hear when the Book Village app officially launches and have the opportunity to be among the first people in the world to start making an impact through the Book Village platform.