Empowering children to read for knowledge, meaning and understanding
SHINE’s Reading Odyssey (RO) programme helps children from underprivileged backgrounds improve their reading abilities. Through collaborations with community partners and volunteers, it helps children learn to read for meaning, knowledge and understanding through guided reading and information processing games. Research has shown that the ability to read makes children more confident and helps them engage better at school and in society. Children who are good readers also tend to perform better in school, have a healthy self-image, and become lifelong learners.
About Reading Odyssey
The world is constantly evolving at a rapid pace. With technological advancements, globalization, and shifts in societal norms, we need to be mindful of ensuring children who are vulnerable, or disadvantaged are not left behind. The Reading Odyssey programme supports this mission via providing opportunities to read and beyond: to understand text via a guided reading approach; to practice thinking and information processing skills; to reflect on learning; and appreciate different cultures. Through this, children are empowered to be lifelong learners in their journey navigating this world of change.
Developing Comprehension Skills & Finding a Voice
Often a child with learning difficulties is resistant to learning and fearful of expressing themselves due to low self-esteem. During a Reading Odyssey session, levelled readers are matched to the children’s reading levels after a screening assessment. Through the Guided Reading Approach, trained volunteers provide guidance in decoding unfamiliar words, clarification on vocabulary or concepts, and encourage children to use reading strategies such as predicting, summarizing, and making connections. It also helps the child to question, analyze, and evaluate information.
Critically, through pre-reading activities, children’s prior knowledge and anticipation of the text is activated. Through questioning strategies and a curious and non-threatening volunteer stance, children are encouraged to express themselves on various topics, without being judged. Meaningful conversations help children deepen their understanding of the content, make connections to their own experiences, share their opinions, and develop critical thinking skills.
Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn
Cognitive or information processing skills are the core skills our brain uses to acquire knowledge, to think, read, remember, reason, and pay attention. Working together, these skills help us to take in incoming information, process information and carry out the act of learning in our daily lives. Many struggles in learning are contributed by one or more weak cognitive skills. While enjoying cognitive games and having fun in groups, children practise skills in auditory and visual attention, memory, sequencing, and discrimination that help a child learn and read.
Post-session structured reflection and documenting on a behaviour chart guided by trained volunteers facilitate children in thinking and reflecting about their learning behaviours during the session, helping them to identify constructive actions, challenges, as well as actions they can take in subsequent sessions.
Appreciation of Cultures through Stories
Aside from levelled readers, the programme incorporates story books from the National Library Board during a big group story reading component. The books feature stories from different countries around the globe. As the children “journey” around the world, the stories and conversations offer them insight into various customs, traditions, beliefs, values and opportunities to build appreciation of cultural diversity, which can help foster a more inclusive and globally minded perspective.
Voices of our Reading Odyssey Volunteers:
It is great to connect with children who are very enthusiastic about reading. Through a systematic approach, reading habit can surely be inculcated among students which will enhance their vocabulary and even oratory skills.
Volunteer, RO @ Jalan Bukit Merah
I have had the fortune of quite a few memorable times at RO but the one that stands out strongly is that of the happy faces of my students when they are encouraged to put to context a new word learnt - they feel proud that they could understand what the word means without having to Google or refer to a dictionary!
Volunteer, RO @ CLUB Ministries
I learnt how to engage children in reading and deep dive into expanding their vocabulary and comprehension of the book which they are reading. It was memorable when a child who does really speak then started to communicate more and show a little more interest in reading.
Volunteer, RO @ TOUCH Young Arrows Hougang
Voices of the children:
“I can play games with my friends and learn new words and
spend time with my teachers. (volunteers)”
(Divinya, Primary 3)
“They (volunteers) are very kind and helpful,
and we get to play games and read big books together as a class.”
(Yumna, primary 3)
“ I learn about history (referring to book title “Looking back, moving forward”)…I can collect points also, but the points are not that important as the learning, reading.”
(Jerine, primary 5)
In essence, Reading Odyssey is a learning journey
In the words of Mark Twain, “Never let formal education get in the way of your learning”.
We appreciate our valued community partners, donors, grantors as well as our volunteers who commit to this cause to empower children to embrace the path of learning beyond formal education. We also appreciate the SHINE team who care greatly about enabling children to be engaged meaningfully in learning, to expose them to new ideas and perspectives, to speak for themselves, and to step out of their comfort zone. Through the Reading Odyssey movement, we connect the children to their future-- one of purposeful connections and inclusion in the community.
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