Help2read makes reading fun. We help children love books. We recruit and train English speakers in paired reading techniques. Our trained volunteers help the same child twice a week for one year, so children get priceless, long term, one-on-one care and support. We give each volunteer a box full of every type of book, from African Tales to Fairy tales, sticker books to pop-up books, fiction to non fiction, science books to poetry, puzzles, jokes and games too and children can choose to spend the half hour however they like. Children quickly find a book they love and learn to love reading.
Executive Summary
Many South African children have parents who can’t read or write English and who, therefore, can’t read to them. Yet, without this, kids tend to fall behind their peers, losing confidence and self esteem. With the loss of confidence comes the loss of pleasure. Kids who don’t feel confident about their reading simply don’t like reading or books. For many of those children, reading has only ever been torture and humiliation. Those that don’t read outside of school have only ever had the school’s books imposed on them, and those books may not interest them.
They’ve never had the opportunity to choose what interests them and to explore that. Help2read changed that by turning reading into play. The foundation helps children aged 5-14 who find reading difficult.
We recruit and train volunteers from the local community to help children read and we give them a box full of fabulous books and games to play with. Sessions are entirely child led, so children can only enjoy themselves. Very quickly, children look forward to reading, instead of dreading it.
“We have come a long way in the last 16 months” said Alex Moss, the English founder of the child literacy NGO, help2read. “From a pilot project at Muizenburg Junior School in February 2006, to 10 schools now active with help2read and several more in the pipeline. Last year you helped changed the lives of over 150 children. This year we hope to double that figure before the year is out”.
Muizenberg Junior School’s head teacher, Dee Milford, says that the help2read program, which started its pilot Feb. 1st at Muizenberg Junior School, is already having widespread positive results. Teachers report that those students currently benefiting from the help2read scheme not only read better, but are also more confident, positive and sociable!
Report back
29/03/2007
The Key to GGSA
March has seen some vitally important progress with help2read, not least due to GGSA enabling Key Recruitment to find and contact us. As a result the opportunity for Key Recruitment staff to volunteer during their lunch hour was realised and the primary school closest to their offices, Mountain Road Primary in Woodstock, now receives two visits a week from Belinda Rigby and Heather Johnson, the fabulously supportive and dedicated Key Recruitment staff who are now helping two children each for half an hour of individual reading support. What a result!
Staff of Key Recruitment in Woodstock, Cape Town, have decided to put back something into the community surrounding their offices by volunteering with the organisation help2read – for half an hour twice a week, helping children at nearby Mountain Road Primary who are struggling with their reading.
