Home \ Project News \ Let the children in the villages on the Jinsha River enjoy the fun of reading
Qiaojia County has the most complex topography in Yunnan Province, and is separated from Liangshan in Sichuan Province by the Jinsha River. The topography of the county is dominated by mountains, which account for 98.9% of the total area of the county. Most of the towns and villages are on the ridges along the Jinsha River, with high valleys, deep and steep mountain roads, and altitudes ranging from 800 to 3,000 meters above sea level. Most of the schools here are located in the mountains, and an hour's walk to school is the norm for children in Qiaojia County.
Figure 1 Part of the topography of Qiaojia County
Figure 2 School in the mountains
In 2018, POF came to Qiaojia County, and while supplementing the hardware facilities and improving the environment of the preschool class, HPP is also working with partners who wish to contribute to the development of young children in the country side, and iRead Foundation is one of them.
With the vision of “High-quality child reading for a better future”, iRead Foundation is committed to promoting the development of children's reading and improving the quality of children's reading, so that every child can open the door to exploring the world through high-quality reading, enjoying the fun of reading, and growing up to be a lifelong reader.
Status
In 2022 iRead Foundation started to support POF ‘Reading For All’ project in Qiaojia County, Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province. The project established standardized reading corners for 16 rural preschool classes in Qiaojia and equipped them with appropriate children's books according to the iRead book list. The program staff and teachers gradually began to understand reading, and the children's reading skills were greatly improved.
In the school year 2023-2024, the project supported 45 classes, covering 1,097 students. The project continues to provide reading training for preschool classroom teachers, to improve the ability of 45 rural preschool teachers to carry out children's reading work, to guide children to better reading activities, to cultivate good reading habits, to explore an effective model of early childhood reading in rural areas, and to help children to have a brighter future.
Children and project staff in the iRead Reading For All project area corners
From May 14-16, 2024, iRead Foundation's Director of Grants, Feng Qian, along with HPP's Partnership Senior Officer Han Xu, and HPP Qiaojia Project Office staff, Buzi Yiri, visited POF in Chongxi and Dazhai Townships in Qiaojia County, Yunnan Province, and discussed project impact with the principals and teachers of the central and elementary school in the two townships.
Communication with Principal Zhang and Principal Wang of Chongxi Township Rural Center School, Principal Yang of Laoya Village Primary School,
and Teacher Yang of Laoya Village preschool class
Communicating with Principal Shi of Miaopu Primary School in Haikou Village, Dazhai Town
Checking out the books
Showing Picture Book Stories
Communication with Teachers
During the visit, iRead Foundation's Mrs. Feng Qian was very interested about how the children in the preschool class used the books and how much they liked them. Interacting with the children, the children in the preschool class shared their favorite books with Ms. Feng, including Pippi Fox Goes on Vaccination, Grandpa Must Have a Way, and Tom Gets Punished and so on.
Seed Teachers
In addition to communicating with children, in the Dazhai Town Guancun Primary School, not far from the Jinsha River Baihetan Hydroelectric Power Station, the visiting team also got to know Mrs. Lin, who loves to tell stories.
Mrs. Lin has been working in the preschool class in Dazhai Town Guancun for 2 years. She was born in 2000 and is a native of Dazhai Town, Qiaojia County. She has not a preschool education major, but since she came to the preschool class, she fell in love with the work. The POF project teacher training activities helped her to get the preschool education teacher qualification certificate and other certificates, and also in the reading trainings Mrs. Lin is actively participating and practicing the knowledge learned.
Mrs. Lin Cong, preschool teacher of Guancun, told the children the picture book story of The Red Balloon is Gone
During the training on reading, she heard lectures from the program's mentor, Huang Lirong from Nanning Tongxinyuan, and teachers such as Zi Xinghua from Kunming College, from which she learned a lot about how reading can increase children's interest and how to teach children to read on their own. Mrs. Lin said that such training was very useful and she learned how to tell picture book stories.
“During the training, I enjoyed listening to the trainer telling picture book stories. I didn't know how to tell stories before, but now after I know how to do, I tell stories to children twice a week.”
Children holding a favorite picture book and sharing the story
In Mrs. Lin's class, the children also tell their own stories and do picture book sharing. These picture books are usually stories that Mrs. Lin told the children last week, and based on the pictures, the children are also able to retell the story in their own words.
During the exchange, Mrs. Lin confessed that she hoped there would be more training opportunities in the future and that she would be able to go out of Qiaojia to see preschools beyond the mountains.
Impact
In the two years since the iRead Reading For All project was launched, the evaluation report of the POF has shown that the reading ability of the children reached by the project has improved significantly.
In the fall semester of 2022, the project team used the China Children's Competency Index (CCCI) to guide the teachers of the preschool class to conduct a “pre-test” for the children based on random sampling, and a post-test for the children who had taken the pre-test in 2022 and were still enrolled in the preschool class in June 2023, which was conducted by the project team. In June 2023, a post-test was administered to children who had taken the pre-test in 2022 and were still enrolled in preschool. The pre- and post-tests showed a very significant improvement in reading skills, with scores increasing by 90%. Qiaojia POF become number one in reading literacy among the 11 counties in Yunnan Province where POF operate.
In the preschool classes visited teachers have organized regular reading lessons, provide free reading in the reading corner, and do picture book storytelling, etc. The presence of the iRead Reading For All project in Qiaojia POF class has brought more books for children to read, provided children with a comfortable and suitable reading environment, and allowed rural preschool teachers to experience and understand the reading methodology from 0-1 so that they can practice the reading method in their own classes and promote children's brain development and cultivate their reading habits.
Future
The project will continue to support the improvement of teachers' reading instruction skills and support them to develop diversified reading activities in the early childhood classes.
During this visit, the visiting team also went to some villages that are not reached by the POF program. They saw the needs of other preschool classes, such as classroom tables and chairs that need to be replaced with children's tables and chairs, and the lack of children's books and toys in the classrooms. In the future, HPP will seek more partners to help the needy preschool classes in Qiaojia County as much as we can.
Left,the classroom supported by the project
Right,the classroom not supported by the program
Reading joy in childhood.
The iRead Reading For All project brings children more possibilities to see the world, and also ignites the reading motivation of children in remote rural areas, allowing them to enjoy their childhood more.
Project Description:
From 2023 to 2024, Phase II of the iRead Reading For All project supported 45 classes in Qiaojia County to establish standardized book corners, covering 1,097 children. The project provides reading training for 45 early childhood classroom teachers to enhance the ability of rural early childhood teachers to carry out children's reading work, guide children to better reading activities, and cultivate good reading habits. The program explores an effective model of early childhood reading in rural areas to help children have a better future. The project is funded by iRead Foundation and implemented by Kunming Good Deed Public Welfare Community Development Service Center in cooperation with HPP.
This article represents the views of the author and is not related to the position of the funder.