Helping Hands working to improve reading in Riverlea
Helping Hands Aftercare and Reading Project.
A facilitator from the non-profit organisation by the name of Helping Hands speaks about how they working to improve reading in the community of Riverlea.
Helping Hands aftercare and reading project in partnership with the Riverlea Recreation Centre and the Library started in 2016 when Milly Harris discovered that the children who attended the sewing class had problems with understanding what they were reading, therefore, Harris decided to speak to all the relevant parties to assist with the reading issue.
“I then started helping children who are in need of help with homework as well as reading, spelling, breaking up of words and sentences so that they could understand what they are reading,” explained Harris.
The facilitator noticed that some children could read but lacked the understanding of what they were reading and this also resulted in them failing in tests and exams at school so Harris felt that this was a crisis and needed to be seen to.
The classes then grew bigger than Harris expected and she could no longer manage it on her own so she got Edwin R Ismail who recently self-published his book ‘Turning Point’ to assist with the reading part and there he did a group reading with the learners for a few months.
“I also worked with children who needed one-on-one attention, these children the progressed so well at school. During exam time, I help them to study and we work on the subjects they writing the following day. We received very good results as well as progress in the sewing class,” added Harris.
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This year the group grew to about 30 learners per day and these were learners from Grade 1 up until Grade 10. The classes are held from Monday to Thursday after school in the hall at the Riverlea Recreation Centre.
“Rubelene is overseeing the groups as we are having students from the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to come and assist us with the children,” shared Harris.
There are about eleven UJ students to come in and now the days have been broken down for the learners. The programme goes as follows: Monday and Tuesday: reading with understanding, word building, learning new words and spelling.
Harris also has an Afrikaans class for Grade learners in Grade 3 to Grade 10 on a Tuesday. Wednesday: Library day, storytelling and word puzzles and on Thursdays is activity day where the learners play games and have fun.
Harris said that parents are very happy with their children’s improvements in their school work since attending the programme. The learners recently had a closing party where they spent the fun afternoon at the Riverlea Swimming Pool during the holiday programme.
If you would like to know more about the reading project you can contact Harris on 062 645 0981.
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