Love Reading takes Heart

“A book is your best friend. It will never leave you and will always be there.”  

With these words the principal of George Dickerson School set forward the task at the Love Reading Programme perfectly.  The Love Reading Programme is one of four community programmes run from Lebone Centre, a non-profit organization and facility supported and sponsored by the ICDP Trust and Kingswood College. Its job has always been what its title suggests: get local Grahamstown kids from over-burdened schools to read more and love it! 

With the support of Veronica Moodley, Project Manager at Lebone Centre, we have begun a process to question and realign this programme’s intentions to match its students’ needs. By meeting with the headmasters and teachers of all three government schools involved and with the Rhodes volunteers who are the teaching backbone of the programme, several foundational changes seem necessary. These changes will aim to support students who are not yet up to the task of book reading, hopefully giving them enough of a English language base to begin story reading (and writing) at a basic level. This will be done always in support of their full-time school’s and teacher’s intentions.

The most critical aspect of this structure and what we are spending the most time on is the programme itself: how it provides building blocks but still inspires the kids with confidence and desire to read.  Priorities going forward are 1) the curriculum itself: get a strong and relevant programme up and running; 2) build and enhance our volunteer teaching staff; 3) develop strong ties with Kingswood and the larger literacy-focused community in Grahamstown.

Of course, the key player in all this is Kingswood College: The Love Reading Programme is an important part of a larger community outreach initiative that Kingswood is championing. Going ahead we hope to involve Kingswood students in the teaching and mentoring of the kids as well as looking for valuable support from the junior school in literacy development and library services. We do want to zush up the rooms at Lebone Centre with some shelves, paint and seating areas. You can bet our practical needs are great and a wish-list will be forthcoming!

Thanks and, as always, anyone interested in helping out at any level would be more than welcome,
Yours,
Ford Evanson
Coordinator, Love Reading Programme