Read with Me experiences in Kousha House of Kids

Read with Me experts visited and reported the progress of project in Kousha House of Kids twice in July 2015.

In this center mornings are started by children chants and songs and exercises. These exercises are planned in accordance with songs by consulting the institute’s experts.

The report was about the Reading Aloud sessions, interesting books for children, books which were less interesting for children, words which were hard to pronounce or understand by children. Some important points are brought below:

• The children in this center liked the book “What & What & What, An Infant” so much. The teachers have divided children in two groups in order to increase their concentration. Children participated actively in questions and answers. The words hard to pronounce and understand were recognized and taught to children. They learned counting by this book and enjoyed its rhythmic text.
• According the reports given by the teachers related activities to the book “Izzy and Skunk” were numerous: questions and answers, story telling, a painting titled “I am scared, you are scared”, a painting titled “Calm Sign” and making a spider craft. The hard words were also mentioned.

After conversations with teachers it was specified that children did not pay much attention to this book. It was described to teachers that this book has deep and complicated contents so the way it is read is very important to make connections with children. After negotiations with the Kousha House of kids’ authorities it was arranged to dedicate more time to Reading Books and Reading Aloud due to goals set for the project. It was suggested to read aloud at least one book in a week and use the books recently brought to the library and also the books in which the children were interested.

Once a week the book “Learning Sounds” is practiced with children in Kousha House of Kids. In previous visits children showed less interest in this book. It was suggested to prepare the masks of book characters and teachers use them while reading the books or draw the scenes of the books on big paperboards and children play the short stories scenes after reading. In the final visit it was done and children accompanied the book with more joy and attention.

Kousha House of Kids has started its activity at “House of toy and health of Dabir-ol-Molk” concentrating on labor children in Emamzadeh Yahya district since 2001. The historical house of Dabir-ol-Molk has been restored by Tehran Municipality and now is a place for education, book reading and play for the children of the law-income families in the district and labor children. In September 2014 four workshops were held for teachers in the Kousha House of Kids and afterwards since October 2014 the Read with Me project started officially its activity in this center which continues by now.