Empower South African children with reading skills

To make the monitoring and support of Reading Partners in schools a success we appointed unemployed graduates, who were skilled and displayed outstanding leadership abilities.

By the end of Term 2, we employed five coordinators who also received training in the Shine methodology. Their primary task was to support, mentor, and guide the RPs in their daily workday. Through this opportunity, coordinators have benefitted by working in a professional and empowering work environment whilst gaining essential work skills.

The coordinators contribute immensely to the overall success of the Youth4Literacy programme. In their supportive role, they have been able to have sessions with TAs who do paired reading in their classes.

In June 2022 a Reading Partner Survey was conducted by the Shine Literacy Coordinators in order to find ways to improve the programme and find solutions of working with class teachers, parents and the school community, in order to create a culture of reading at home and at school. Also conducted during June 2022 were teacher surveys detailing their experience in the Y4L programme so far and where possible improvements could be made.

Some key themes from the surveys were as follows:

• Training and empowerment on reading out loud in front of others
• A brief training on classroom management and conduct within the classroom
• Improved record-keeping in order to track and monitor progress and implementation
of the Programme
• Extra attention should be given to learners who struggle and are reading below par

Links:

• Shine Literacy Mid-Year report