Underserved kindergartens in Mazandaran start academic year with Read with Me

Underserved kindergartens in Mazandaran start academic year with Read with Me

This October, following the beginning of a new academic year, the second year of Read with Me in kindergartens of marginal and underserved regions in Mazandaran started.

Read with Me started its activities in this region in Winter 2019, covering almost 500 children in the most vulnerable areas. During the first year, Read with Me trained 32 tutors and 14 kindergartens covered by Mazandaran State Welfare Organization in the series of Basic Literacy Creative Education workshops.

After visiting the tutors and evaluating their progress in May 2019, Read with Me experts held another set of workshops. These workshops included: Introduction to Children’s Literature, Reading Aloud Techniques and Book-related Artistic Activities. In these workshops, tutors and kindergarten principals were introduced to quality books, story elements, picture books, and reading aloud techniques and its follow-up activities.

Nearly 500 quality books along with handbooks and activity sheets were sent to the kindergartens and tutors. Each tutor was given a book display to install in their classrooms so that books were accessible and visible to children.

The workshops were well-received among the tutors. In the coming academic year, they hope to use their training to implement more creative methods and bring much joy into their classrooms.

Read with Me, State Welfare and Mazandaran Kindergartens are optimistic about improving children’s skills against hardships. This can hopefully be done through two rounds of workshops, empowering the tutors to hold reading aloud sessions and implementing the basic literacy creative education method in the underserved kindergartens of Mazandaran.