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Six secondary and five primary schools in the North 4 Cluster come together to achieve a common goal—spread the love of reading and help the younger ones better their English language skills.
In support of the National Library Board’s (NLB) KidsRead programme, Master Teacher Ms Connie Seng from the North 4 Cluster sought NLB’s permission to allow six secondary and five primary schools to start reading clubs in the latter schools. This led to the formation of the NORTH FOUR-NLB KidsRead Reading Clubs in five primary schools—Fernvale, Maris Stella, Mee Toh, Montfort Junior and Seng Kang. Primary 1 and 2 pupils who were weak in the English Language were invited to join the reading clubs.
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Reading Ambassadors also use handmade tools in their story-telling. |
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The KidsRead Reading Club is the brainchild of NLB. It is a collaborative effort by NLB, People’s Association and self-help organisations—Association of Muslim Professionals, Chinese Development Assistance Council, Singapore Indian Development Association, The European Association and Singapore Yayasan MENDAKI—to reach out to less well-off children who do not visit public libraries. Under this programme, NLB-trained volunteers read to invited disadvantaged children to inculcate a love of reading in them. |
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Reading Ambassadors practise their story-telling skills at a training workshop conducted by drama and language arts specialists. |
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Students from the six secondary schools—Compassvale, Maris Stella, Montfort, Nan Chiau, Punggol and Serangoon—who volunteered to be Reading Ambassadors, were shortlisted to undergo training by drama and language arts specialists.
The training, sponsored by NLB, equipped them with skills such as relating effectively to young children, reading or retelling stories with appropriate expressions and feelings, and enthusing young beginning readers with interesting and relevant language activities and games.
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Playing Big Brother and Sister
The Reading Ambassadors spent an hour each week conducting reading activities for the primary school pupils. This continued for about a term and at the end of the programme, they each received a certificate of participation. Throughout the programme, the student volunteers played ‘big brother’ and ‘big sister’ to the younger ones, sharing moments of camaraderie and deep rapport as they browsed through books provided by NLB.
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It’s story time by the Nan Chiau High School ‘Jeh Jehs’ for pupils at Fernvale Primary.
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Judging from the smiling faces and enthusiasm of both pupil participants and student volunteers in the photographs, the North 4-NLB KidsRead Reading Clubs had indeed hit a high score. The pupil participants were eager to participate with their ‘kor-kors’ and ‘jeh-jehs’ (‘older brothers and sisters’) in all the activities. The positive feedback from the Reading Ambassadors, teachers and HODs who participated in the programme was a strong impetus for the North Four Cluster to continue with the project in 2007 with two more secondary schools—Greendale and Pei Hwa—
joining in. |
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