HasanAbad Moshir

Geographic Location: Northeast of Yazd
Age-Group: Preschool, Elementary and Middle school, Mothers
Number of Children: 218
Number of Families: 80
Number of Teachers: 30
Start Date: Summer 2012
End Date: 2014

“Read with Me” project was started in Yazd after two consecutive trips of Read with Me experts to Yazd and several meetings with volunteers and interested individuals to join this project. The purpose was to select interested tutors among volunteers for Reading Aloud project in HasanAbad Moshir. Finding interested and qualified people was not easy. “Read with Me” group led by Nehzat Ghorieshi, finally brought a group of young interested volunteers together to run the project in this neighborhood.

This is a successful and unique experience in “Read with Me” project. Zokai School is located in the suburban area of Yazd. Some of its rooms are dedicated to a library for children and adolescents where Reading Aloud sessions are held. It was also another step forward in this project when families were involved in Reading Aloud sessions.

By forming the group of Book-Reading Tutors of “Read with Me” in Yazd, several consecutive sessions were held for volunteers in order to let them know the project better and discuss the methods of running the project in HasanAbad Moshir. Then professional sessions were held for tutors on these subjects: “The Importance of Reading”, “Ways to increase Book-Reading” and “How to introduce books to children”.

More than 200 children joined this project. Also 80 families registered to join this project. They participated in training sessions and received book bags every two weeks. According to the initial plan, Read with Me experts held two-day training workshops four times a year for tutors. Overall, 25-30 tutors were trained. In addition to four predicted workshops, The project supervisor traveled to Yazd to hold 2-3 hour training sessions for tutors every other week.

Project`s achievements in 2012/13:

  1. ۱۶ weekly Reading Sessions were held for 5-12 year-old children. About 200 children participated in Reading sessions twice a week in this neighborhood. Every five children had a bag of 12 books and activity sheets for three months. They could also borrow their favorite books.
  2. Since Summer 2013 Reading and Creativity Training courses were held for 15 children (3-5 years old) twice a week. Mobtakeran creativity training packages (story, poem, life skills, creative play, scientific experiments, etc) and Learning Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Skills packages were prepared for children. These courses were managed after several requests by the people of the region.
  3. Sessions for Mothers were held every 15 days. In these sessions mothers were educated on different subjects such as: “Behaving a child” and “Ways to increase Book-Reading”. Also every 15 days Reading Aloud sessions were held by the project’s supervisor for mothers. They read short stories and discussed the concepts.

This post is also available in: Persian