Author: Qiaojia County Project Team

Reading can enrich the childhood fun of rural children.

On January 1, 2022, the "Reading for all Program", which focuses on providing reading services for rural children, came to the Preschool of the Future project in Qiaojia County, reaching out to 447 children in 16 classes.

Through the project procurement and arrangement, now all preschool classes have completed the set up of a book corner, and the picture books have been nicely put to use in the corner.  

To let children fall in love with picture books and like reading, is inseparable from the correct guidance of teachers and parents.

During this period, the project organized teachers to carry out pre-service and monthly training, invited professional lecturers to help teachers understand the misunderstandings of picture book reading teaching, learn to combine reading with language, and use scientific methods to carry out reading teaching suitable for rural children.

At the same time, the program also organized parents to learn what 3-6 year old children should learn, how to carry out family picture book reading at home, how to give their children high-quality company in life and so on.

The project team regularly went to the preschool classes to assist the preschool teachers to carry out reading area activities and picture book reading demonstration classes, guide the teachers to develop systems for the use of picture books and area corners, and support the teachers to help parents carry out parent-child reading activities at home.

Picture book reading has been included in the monthly teaching plan of the HPP preschool class. Teachers combine games such as "story telling", "role playing", "poetry" and "choreography dance" with monthly themed activities to carry out rural reading activities.

For example, in the monthly theme activity for preschool classes in May -- "Our Festival", teachers let children experience the beautiful artistic conception and rich imagination of poetry through the picture book "Butterfly and pea flower", stimulating children's interest in poetry, and through music create a dance, preparing for Children's Day activities.

For the rural kindergarten class, most of the left-behind children are taken care of by their grandparents, which is not ideal.

To this end, the Preschool classes have set up a WeChat group for parents. Besides carrying out training for parents online and offline, the teachers also visit families regularly. In addition to understanding the family situation of children, they also instruct grandparents how to tell stories to their children.

Love reading, enjoy childhood. Picture books are not simple pictures. They cover a wide range of topics, including social interaction, art appreciation, nature science and emotional cognition. Each scene is vivid and specific. The ‘Reading for all’ plan will enrich the imagination of children in the rural preschool classes in the future, and help children to understand the world better and improve their cognition.

Project Introduction:

The Preschool of the Future Program of Qiaojia County was funded by the IRead Foundation, supporting 47 children in 16 preschool classes in Qiaojia. The aim is to configure picture books for children's classes, establish reading areas, train teachers and parents, and provide regular supervision by the project team to support rural children's reading skills and enrich their cognition and childhood fun.

The project is supported by the IRead Foundation. The views expressed here are those of the author and have nothing to do with the position of the funder.