School | Book Village

How to Build Connections in Reading Sessions

21/01/2024 by Sarah Bradfield

Gibbs (2006) states that “Teaching and Learning are about meaningful connections.” One of the most special parts of Book Village is that we get to see the impact on our students of having adults that are completely invested in their learning and success. Most of our students come from classrooms that are oversized and under-resourced. For many of our learners, their interactions in Book Village are their only chance for one-on-one learning. The change in our students ,from when they start on our programme to when they have been reading with us for a while, is immense. Our learners become enthusiastic, motivated and engaged in their own learning and that comes from feeling connected to people that believe in them.

Santrock (2009) explains the importance of providing young learners with “a supportive environment for them to develop literacy skills.” As part of our safety features, our tutors and students are connected randomly. While there is a chance you might get a student more than once, you will often be connected to a new student. We know that 20 minutes is not a long time to create a safe and trusting environment for our students to thrive and learn – and yet we see it happening every day!

We do know that this comes with challenges, so here are a few simple ideas to help you to connect with the student in your reading sessions.

Learn their name
Take a minute at the beginning of each session to introduce yourself, ask their name, and if there is a name they prefer to be called. Some students will have multiple names, in different languages. McGee and Fraser (2008) explain that “names can be sacred or have particular significance in terms of ancestry.” We can listen to how students pronounce their names, listening to intonation, emphasis and cadence. Learning their name and using it throughout the session can be a simple way to help students to feel seen and respected.

Show an interest
Students respond positively when they are interacting with someone who shows a “genuine regard for…their progress, their humanity and the essence of who they are.” (McGee and Fraser, 2008). We can demonstrate an interest through
Asking questions. While we discourage volunteers from asking (or answering) specific personal or locational questions for safety reasons, there are lots of questions that are appropriate and relevant to the books you are reading and can help students to share their ideas and opinions. Questions like, “what is your favourite…. Do you enjoy…. What is a time you felt or did…. “ Can allow students to feel confident to share, and feel like their thoughts matter.
Connecting to and building on what students share. You can do this by finding common ground or asking follow up questions for clarity or more information. Using phrases like ‘I agree with what you just said, because…” or “I also think…” can help students to feel like you are listening and that what they are saying is important.
Using humour. This is a great way to connect with students and help them feel engaged. It can also allow students to feel comfortable to share the things they find funny, interesting or meaningful.

Help them feel successful
Learning, especially learning to read, is hard work. It takes a lot of courage for our students to get on the app and read with a new person each session. A great way to help them feel successful is to show enthusiasm through your session together. This can be through specific praise for their effort, focus, skills or ideas shared, sounding out new words or remembering letter sounds. I also find that expressing my excitement to read with them at the beginning of a session, and my enjoyment of our time together at the end of the session are also easy ways to help them feel successful and noticed.

We are so grateful for our volunteers and the kind, compassionate interactions they have with our students. We see the difference you are making, and hope these suggestions are helpful in your sessions with the learners in Book Village.

References
Gibbs, C. (2006) To be a teacher: Journeys towards authenticity. Pearson.
McGee, C., & Fraser, D. (2008). The professional practice of teaching. Cengage Learning.
Santrock, J. (2009) Life-span development. McGraw Hill

By Eva Roding

Back to School Books

18/01/202218/01/2022 by Sarah Bradfield

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

The Effects of COVID on Reading in Low-Income Schools

04/06/202407/12/2021 by Sarah Bradfield

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 2^nd 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

28/06/2021 by Sarah Bradfield

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

09/02/2021 by Sarah Bradfield

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

Why Do We Celebrate Heritage Day?

25/09/2020 by Sarah Bradfield

In South Africa, Heritage Day is celebrated on 24^th September to honour the various cultures and diversities in our country, from the official languages, our cuisine, our music and creative expressions of our historical inheritance. (Department of Arts and Culture).

I love the annual Heritage Day celebrations at schools, with the colourful traditional costumes and dancing. It is a great celebration of our different cultures. This year there was no dancing or singing at Cosmo City Primary, but many of the children arrived at school on Wednesday proudly wearing their beautiful and varied traditional dress, together with their masks.

Before 1994 some heritages were not freely appreciated or promoted in South Africa. In our democracy it is important for us to recognise the significance of our living heritage and to safeguard it for future generations. Language is an important part of people’s identities and their living heritage, and everyone in South Africa has the right to use any of the 11 official languages of their choice.

In Cosmo City Primary School, where we are conducting our pilot study, children are addressed by their teachers in their home languages, but a lot of formal teaching is conducted in English, and most textbooks are in English. The graded reading scheme that we will be using for our Book village App has been specially developed for South African children learning English as their first additional language. The books depict the everyday lives of South African children, making them easier for the children to relate to than books set in England or America. Other South African languages will be added as they become available.

Whilst most of the books in the Book Village library are in English, we have been trying our best to include books in the other SA languages so that the children can enjoy reading in their mother tongue. We have formed a partnership with the excellent Nal’ibali organisation, and their wonderful stories, available in many South African languages, have been digitised and included in our library for children to borrow.

Who’s teaching who? 🤷🏼

11/09/202022/07/2020 by Sarah Bradfield

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