Book Walk

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The volunteers involved in our “Read and Play” session of Summer Serve and Learn have recently arrived in Humjibre and are thrilled to hit the ground running.  “I just want to help out in any way I can.  Even if it’s just one person and it’s something as simple as helping a kid read a book,” said Anna, a volunteer from Pennsylvania.

The “Read and Play” session runs in coordination with the ongoing ReadAthon and has our volunteers running outreach programs to local schools, teaching reading skills as well as how to take good care of books. 

The volunteers have been teaching their young pupils the concept of a “book walk.” 

This starts with an overview of the book itself, examining the cover, its author and the back cover.  With the younger kids they’ll then take a look through the pictures, while with the older students they’ll read through the synopsis, glossary and comprehension questions to guide them in their reading.  The “book walk” serves as a learning tool for these enthusiastic students by improving their comprehension skills, but also gives students the ability to seek out the books they’re actually interested in reading.

 

To help the children retain these instructions, the volunteers have made use of a catchy little song:

Time to take a Book Walk

And see what we can see.

The cover words and pictures

All tell us what might be.

We’ll use our imaginations

Guess what the characters might do

Then we’ll read the book itself

And see if it comes true!

When asked about what they expected from their two-week program it was evident that our volunteers knew that this would be as much of a learning experience for them as it is for their students.  One volunteer, Pearl, from Southern California, had this to say: “I have a feeling I’ll learn a lot about the culture and lifestyle here in Ghana through teaching the children.  I think this will really put things into perspective in terms of what we take for granted back home.”

Another volunteer, John, from Minnesota, remarked: “I expect to meet some great people here in Ghana and really experience their culture.  I’m looking forward to learning more about child literacy so that I’m able to draw comparisons to some of the literacy programs I’ve worked with in Peru as well as the United States.”

Our volunteers are also kept busy creating a series of questions for the participants of the upcoming Quiz Competition, in which primary and junior high school students from around Humjibre will compete in reading comprehension of selected texts, as well as trivia questions about Ghana and Africa.

We at GHEI are delighted to have such a passionate group of volunteers, each making meaningful contributions to our efforts in improving literacy.  Keep up the awesome work!

Read and Play volunteers Anna, Phil, John, Ally, Akshat and Pearl

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