The Link Literacy Project linked up with the Together Action Group (TAG) aftercare centre to assist Grade 2 and Grade 3 learners with reading.
Catrien Tempelhoff who runs the Link programme at TAG explained that this is the first-afternoon session they having since they usually operate at schools.
Tempelhoff explained that the number of students that the programme can take in is dependent on the number of volunteers at the centre.
Currently, the volunteers are working with twelve learners at the centre but they tested with twenty children at the beginning of the year and they have space for twenty learners, the group is just short of volunteers.
“If we had more volunteers then we could have taken in more learners because there are a lot of children here who need help with their reading. In the beginning, we had to choose to work with those children who really needed the assistance,” said Tempelhoff.
According to Tempelhoff, there are no requirements needed to be a volunteer. You don’t need to be a teacher or anything.
“What we do is, we give them a two-hour training and its very simple and all the instructions are at the back of the equipment they use. All you need to know is how to read,” added Tempelhoff.
The centre only has about eight volunteers now. Every Tuesday and Thursday the same learners get help with their reading. Learners are tested and then they get graded.
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The children who still need to learn sounds are on the pre-reading level. A session is 45 minutes long. If the children are on colour levels, the first fifteen minutes of the session the learner gets to read a book from the British curriculum.
They play a game for fifteen minutes and then the volunteer reads to the learner.
“They really like the programme. it’s fun and not stressful. If the child is struggling we just push them to do their best. We laugh through the mistakes and we learn from them. The problem is that they at school the whole day and now they must come and read so we make it as much fun as possible,” said Tempelhoff.
Volunteers can be any age. The only requirement is for you to know how to read. If you are interested in volunteering you can contact Catrien Tempelhoff on 081 505 8931 or on email cattempelhoff@gmail.com. You can also visit TAG.
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