Project Grow with Books

Door Step School started Project Grow with Books in 1999 with the aim of developing the reading skills of children and enhancing their vocabulary. It was initially started in the primary section of 10 schools as part of the school time table and has now, after 10 years, grown to reach more than 44,000 children from 140 municipal schools in the Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad areas. The goal was to improve the reading skills of the children and generate a love for reading which would eventually develop into a love for learning. Better reading also results in improving the quality of learning and helps the children to cope with academics.

Project Grow with Books has two main programs:

• Reading Class sessions for standards 1 to 4
• Home Lending Program for standards 2 to 7

READING CLASS PROGRAM

Overview

Our motivation to start the Reading Class program stems from the lack of reading skills of children studying in public schools. These children have almost no access to any books other than their text books. They have no opportunity to hone their reading skills.

Activities

Once the schools are selected, each standard is allotted one Reading class per week. The class teacher is usually present in the classroom; a few of them even participate in the activities. The activities of the classes are conducted by book-fairies (field level workers of the program). Normally, two book-fairies together conduct a reading class session of 90 minutes in duration. Each class and hence every student gets 90 minutes of supervised reading and related activities every week. Related activities include word games, singing songs, reciting poems and story telling.

The book fairy usually carries a set of books (at least 1.5 times the class strength) with her to the Reading class. The books are selected according to the reading levels of the children in that class. The reading levels are determined on the basis of the Reading Ability Test which is administered twice a year.

Events

• Coloring Activity is conducted for the children at regular intervals to maintain interest in the program.

• Reading competition is held to improve pronunciation and remove stage fright.

• Story telling competition is held to improve comprehension skills.

New Initiatives

Two new initiatives were started for the children of standard 1 to improve their reading/writing ability and to bring them up to par with the reading levels for that age group.

• Sibling – Pair: A brother/sister studying in a higher class was asked to help in teaching the younger sibling with help from the Book Fairy. The goal was to reach “Matras Complete” level and the sibling pair that achieved this was rewarded for their efforts

• Parent Participation: The Book Fairies met the parents to guide them in different ways to teach their children. The teaching material was provided by DSS and the goal was to reach the “Composite Letters” level.

HOME LENDING PROGRAM

The Home Lending program is targeted towards primary and middle school children and is an extension of the Reading class program. Those children that are able to read reasonably well and are used to borrowing books are given books to take home. We offer them a wide variety of age appropriate books to read.

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