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How to Build Connections in Reading Sessions

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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

Heritage Day

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Heritage Day is a call for celebration. South Africa is a culturally-rich country with 11 official languages and it consists of a diverse population of 59 million people. One way to introduce children to the importance of this day is to allow them to have a whole day in their school calendar dedicated to exploring the different facets of the topic of ‘culture’.

The day can begin by allowing learners to dress up in their traditional wear. This is a lovely way to spark conversation about different garments.

Afterwards, you could dive into a pre-made lesson plan. This can include presenting a slideshow on topics such as the ‘history of South Africa’ or even unpacking the 8 world heritage sites:

  • Robben Island (Western Cape) is best known as the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. 
  • iSimangaliso Wetland Park (KwaZulu-Natal) is home to the largest estuary in Africa as well as the southernmost coral reef in Africa.
  • Cradle of Humankind (Gauteng) includes the hominid fossil sites at Swartkrans, Sterkfontein and Kromdraai.
  • Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (KwaZulu-Natal) is where the most concentrated collection of rock paintings in Africa can be seen.
  • Mapungubwe Heritage Site (Limpopo). This was South Africa’s first kingdom which traded with China and India and is also known as the “place of the stone of wisdom”.
  • Cape Floral Kingdom (Western Cape) is 1 of 18 biodiversity hotspots globally. Some of the protected areas that you may already know are Table Mountain, Cederberg wilderness area and Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden.
  • Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape (Northern Cape) covers a vast area of mountainous desert in the north-west part of South Africa. 
  • Vredefort Dome (Free State) is where the world’s largest meteorite impact crater is.

For lunch, you could encourage each child to bring a different food or drink that is quintessential to their culture and ask them to explain how it is made or ask them to give an interesting fact about it. This is another brilliant way to encourage casual conversation. 

To add to the ambience, you could get the learners to colour in different flags, and later have a little pop quiz to test them on the different names of the countries. 

Lastly, different dances, songs or interesting traditions specific to their culture can be shown either through physical demonstration or even video clips online. 

Heritage Day is an important day for remembering one’s history and way of life that make us truly unique. It is a day where people should develop an understanding and willingness to learn about other people. And moreover, it is a good day to have a braai in true South African style!

Youth Day

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In the words of Nelson Mandela “Young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of oppression and raising the banners of freedom”. Youth Day is celebrated annually on the 16th of June as a testament to the power of the youth to advocate against oppression. On the 16th of June 1976, thousands of students protested in the streets of Soweto against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of education. Moreover, the protests were also about the Bantu Education system as a whole. The idea behind Bantu education was to create a population that was trained to perform manual labour and be involved in ‘menial work’.  Students protested this too, opposing the overcrowded, underfunded and poor standards of education that students of colour were receiving from the Apartheid government. Tragically, clashes with police resulted in many protesters’ deaths, with statistics varying from 400 to over 1000 protesters (mainly children) dying. This was a devastating day in our country’s history but one that was also considered a turning point in the Anti-Apartheid regime. The actions of the Apartheid government in the June 16th protests were a contributing factor to the adoption of a more militant approach by Anti-Apartheid movements. The event also highlighted the atrocities of Apartheid to international communities, who would later introduce sanctions against the Apartheid Government. The ‘beginning of the end’ so to say.

This year marks 46 years since the Soweto uprising and whilst many strides have been taken to improve our educational system for young South Africans, there is still more to be done. According to Amnesty International, the modern-day South African educational system is characterised by “crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms and relatively poor educational outcomes”. The article also argued that a poor educational system “perpetuates inequality” and fails many children “with the poor hardest hit”. It is undoubtable that access to a quality education not only has positive impacts for a child but also for all of society. Some devastating statics noted that “three-quarters of children aged nine cannot read for meaning”. This issue in South Africa also seems to varied amongst provinces with statistics showing that reading without comprehension is “as high as 91% in Limpopo and 85% in the Eastern Cape. And of 100 learners that start school, 50-60 will make it to matric, 40-50 will pass matric, and only 14 will go to university”(Amnesty International, 2020).

At Book Village, we will not allow these statistics to persist and part of our mission is to help end the literacy crisis in South Africa. Our hope is that our digital app and library will allow for reading to become more accessible to all young South Africans and that this can help directly target some of the gaps in our educational sector.

This Youth Day, we continue to be inspired by the determination of the youth of 1976 in their quest to advocate for equal education for all. This tragic day is a reminder of where we have come from and our responsibility as a country to continue to advocate for the rights of children, particularly their educational rights.

Going Digital

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According to a UNESCO report published in September 2020, ”Education, the Internet and broadband connectivity have a tremendous potential to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges including the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Nevertheless, today 3.6 billion people still have no access to the Internet and about 258 million children are out of school.” (https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374309/PDF/374309eng.pdf.multi)

If you live in Gauteng, or probably anywhere in South Africa, you don’t have to look very hard until you find school children who have never accessed the internet.  For most of the little Grade 1s at Cosmo City Primary School outside Johannesburg, the first time they did was when they used the Book Village digital library through the Sora app from Overdrive.

And for these children, Library Time is a real treat!  We use some of the enriching material available on the internet all the time to liven up our lessons – but most importantly, the internet is a platform that enables the children to connect with the outside world like never before. With the Book Village app, we are extending the reach of one teacher in a classroom of over 60 children, to giving every child their own individual tutor so that they might learn at their own level and pace.

Apart from overcrowding in schools, many children start Grade 1 without having any pre-school education. There are only 50 places in Grade R at Cosmo City Primary for example, yet there are about 200 Grade 1 children. To help catch them up, we’ve designed a pre-reading programme that can be digitised and worked through with an individual online tutor when the children start school. We’ve been through this with the Grade Rs and Grade 1s this year, and they are making fantastic progress. We will include this programme in a future version of the Book Village app.

Finally, from the same UNESCO report, “School connectivity must also be about empowering those who are online by providing them with high quality, meaningful, inclusive and relevant content that is accessible through safe and secure platforms and delivered by innovative methods of instruction.”

And at Book Village, we are doing just that.

Freedom Day

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In a country like South Africa, freedom was not afforded to everyone. Blood, sweat, and tears are what lead to the first democratic elections that took place on this very day, 28 years ago. Race was no longer considered a factor in the voting process and South Africans could rejoice over Apartheid’s demise. 19,7 million people casted their vote for their government of choice, resulting in Nelson Mandela from the African National Congress, being inaugurated as the first black president of South Africa.

Freedom Day is an important day to acknowledge because it was the start of a reformed society that began to embrace difference and welcomed notions of freedom of expression and choice. People of colour were finally able to express themselves freely through their writing and certain books were unbanned. Works such as ‘And a Threefold Cord’ by Alex La Guma, ‘I Write What I Like’ by Steve Biko, and ‘Amandla’ by Miriam Tlali were a few of these books that were unbanned.

One book that every South African child should read on this day is Nelson Mandela’s ‘A Long Walk to Freedom’ abridged by Chris Van Wyk. This book details Mandela’s journey in a beautifully illustrated work that makes the concept of Apartheid and the significance of freedom easily understandable. Another way you could teach your kids about this day is by taking them to one of the many museums that have wonderfully curated exhibitions. Learning through live interactions and experiences is one of the best ways to ensure that your children remember what they are learning. Robben Island and The Apartheid Museum are good options to visit, and if you’re lucky, you might even receive free entrance if you go on the day!

The 27 April is a day that we should remind our children to shoot for their dreams as anything is possible if you put your mind to it. The freedom fighters that resisted Apartheid are a prime example of this.

Kahlil Gibran’s famous quote: “Life without liberty is like a body without spirit” is a moving description that sums up the importance of freedom.

Mother Earth Day

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April 22nd is UN Mother Earth Day. A day that raises global awareness of the challenges to the well-being of the planet and all the life it supports.  Mother Earth Day also recognises a collective responsibility (as called for in the 1992 Rio Declaration), to promote harmony with nature and the Earth, to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of the present and future generations of humanity. (https://www.un.org/en/observances/earth-day).

At the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, 193 countries adopted the 2030 Development Agenda and 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). International cooperation on climate change is closely linked with the other principal concern of humanity – how to achieve sustainable development for global prosperity. Climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation threaten the achievement of all of the SDGs, including Goal 4, Quality Education, that Book Village is most closely aligned with. (https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature)

We’ve been looking for the best ways to get talking about climate change and the environment with the children at Cosmo City Primary. Ultimately, we enjoyed spending time on ‘Climate Box’, an interactive platform from the UN (https://climate-box.com).  The toolkit provides to be highly enriching with the inclusion of a textbook, quiz, maps and posters – all aimed at primary and secondary school children.

Many books on the subject are quite alarming and wouldn’t make for good bedtime reading.  We recently read ‘My Friend Whale’, by Simon James to the Grade 1s.  We were enjoying the book until it just ended, as unexpectedly as the ‘Diary of Anne Frank’, with the friendly whale simply disappearing.

But there are some beautiful, hopeful books too, and these are the ones we chose to read to the children for Mother Earth Day.

‘The Brilliant Deep’, by Kate Messner tells the story of the environmental scientist Ken Nedimyer, founder of the Coral Restoration Foundation and how he is saving and regrowing the world’s coral reefs.

Another lovely picture book ‘What on Earth is That?’ by Sarah Savory is a story about a pangolin, the most trafficked mammal on earth. 

‘I am Farmer:  Growing an Environmental Movement in Cameroon’ by Miranda Paul and Baptiste Paul is the true story of how environmentalist Farmer Tantoh is transforming the landscape of Cameroon.  It is a beautiful, inspirational story and the quote at the end of the book is poignant – “It doesn’t matter where you come from – you are never too small or insignificant to contribute to the long-term sustainability of our planet.  By doing simple things to the best of your ability, you are improving the world.”

Human Rights Day

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“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity” – Nelson Mandela. This quote captures the essence of why every year on the 21st of March, Human Rights Day is celebrated in South Africa. This day acknowledges those that fought against the pass laws in the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and on a broader scale, for democracy. Tragically, 69 people were unrightfully killed by police officers in the Sharpeville Massacre. The protestors’ rights to life, dignity, equality, and freedom of movement were stripped away from them. Thus, this event is a reminder of how pertinent it is to learn from history and ensure that an atrocity like this does not occur again.

Human rights serve as a trajectory for the way people should be treated and should treat others. One particular right that should be focused on in a South African context, is the right to education. Although human rights are enshrined in our constitution, there is still significant work to be done to actualise these rights and not just ensure that everyone can access an education, but further, a quality education. According to a 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), eight out of ten grade 4 learners cannot read for meaning across all languages in South Africa. These statistics are concerning, but it does not mean that many South Africans are not trying to change the course of these statistics. One of the key areas affecting literacy rates is the provision of resources. Book Village aims to combat this and hopes to make reading more accessible to young South Africans through our online literacy programme.

We, at Book Village believe that education is the tool to empower the youth to live comfortable lives filled with opportunities. Book Village is dedicated to honouring the right to education by giving children the skill of literacy. Being able to read, not only allows for a sense of enjoyment, but it also enables children to grow their understanding of the world and make it a better place for all.

Happy Human Rights Day from Book Village!

Library Week 14 – 20 March 2022

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

The Library and Information Association is celebrating Library Week 14-20 March 2022 with the theme of Re-Imagine, Re-Purpose, Re-discover…Libraries! https://www.liasa.org.za/.

Libraries continue to be affected by COVID and many are still unable to provide services to the communities they serve.  With this in mind, the theme for Library Week 2022 will look at the ways in which libraries are having to reimagine and repurpose their services and spaces so that communities will rediscover and see the benefit of their libraries.

The traditional hard-copy book library at Cosmo City Primary 1 school (where we are conducting our trial), was refurbished and re-opened in 2015 with funding and support from (the now closed) School Aid charity and the Peter Cundill Foundation. The Bookery NPO catalogued and covered the books that can be accessed in the library, as well as contributed towards the librarian’s livelihood for 3 years. The library was a thriving and much loved part of the school from 2015 until the beginning of 2020, when it was closed for book lending due to COVID. The book lending service of the library remains closed, and this has probably been the fate of many libraries across South Africa.

But the Cosmo City Primary library has been re-imagined!  It is still a busy, thriving space and it’s still devoted to books and reading.   In one corner the government’s Reading Champions take small groups of grade 2 and 3 learners and help them catch up on some of the learning time that’s been lost due to COVID. We work in another corner of the library, surrounded by lovely books, which sadly cannot be borrowed anymore, but the children often get a story read to them which they enjoy.  All children and teachers at the school are able to borrow books from the Book Village digital library at any time – and they’ve been loving it.  We’ve been focusing on the grade 1s this term, and they have become wizards at logging in, navigating around the library and borrowing their own books. We’ve been amazed by their progress in interacting with technology.

The Cosmo City Primary community really values books, reading and their library space, even though the library has gone digital. And for this, we think the children there are lucky to be surrounded by individuals who will encourage a safe space for learning and furthering the education of these young students.

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”.

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

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