kidsREAD: Taking A Long Break

I will be taking a longer break in kidsREAD as my wife and I are expecting a little bundle of joy sometime next year. Hence, I will need to prepare for my own little kidsREAD programme for my baby who is on the way. :-)

Looking back at my involvement in kidsREAD, it has been a fulfilling time and allowed me to understand children aged six to eight just that much better in some respects. It is also tough to be a parent in today's society as Singapore is a ruthless laboratory of social darwinism where survival of the fittest rules.

Children have the potential to grow and develop
One of the key life lessons I learnt during kidsREAD is that all children have the potential to grow despite their family backgrounds. The children in kidsREAD tend to be from lower income families and bigger families but I found very little correlation between their intelligence and ability against their social backgrounds. In fact, many of the mothers I met understand the value of education and send their children not only to kidsREAD but also other tuition programs offered by the Chinese Development Assistance Council.

Also, some of my brightest children in the kidsREAD class are from large families with four siblings and they all have the potential to be the next Prime Minister or Chief Executive Officer if we can nuture their talent and allow them to tap on opportunities despite their humble family backgrounds. They are the future of Singapore: each individual child endowed with the potential to be future leaders of this country.

Some of them read well even though at home they speak mostly mandarin as some of the parents do bring them to libraries and expose them to English reading material on top of school work and readings.

One in four adults in the US did not read a book in a year
I read this article which talked about how reading was at risk in the US as almost 25% of adults did not even read a single book in a year. Increasingly, that is the risk that alternative forms of media delivery such as the internet (youtube, dailymotion), television and radio takes us away from reading as a leisure activity, reading for personal growth and development and reading to understand more about the world around us.

Using myself, I too at times get lulled by the relative ease at which I can get content and info-tainment through cable televisions, internet music videos and from surfing the internet. However, my kidsREAD experience shows me that all is not lost. Children will still respond to books and reading if it is made a fun activity with interactivity between them and the books. The human element in communicating the story in the book to the children, bringing their attention to the pictures and illustrations in the book and getting to them read aloud all help to make it more active for them and less passive. That is one of the keys of arousing their interest in reading.

Reading is for you, for me, for all to see!
Reading is a critical lifeskill that you can impart to your child. It is not just about learning something to pass exams and get a paper qualification. It is about empowering them to learn how to learn new knowledge, skills and experiences in the ever-changing world: through reading, reading and more reading.

Empower your child today:

Read to them
Read with them
Read, read and read.

Read well, live well.

kidsREAD: A short break

I have not been updating kidsREAD as regularly as I was on vacation for two weeks and was involved in the SIM National Management Competition 2007 where our team was fortunate enough to come in 2nd Runner-Up (third!) in the competition.

The interesting thing is that readership of this blog has spiked recently and I am getting a number of hits from the US of A!

Here's wishing readers from the United States a good day surfing my site and drop a comment if you'd like to know more about kidsREAD programme in Singapore.

For my Singaporean readers, do drop a comment too if you are interested in kidsREAD as we do have some student volunteers who need to take a break to focus on their studies leading up to their school examinations. We are always on the lookout for people who have an interest in teaching reading and literacy skills to children aged 4 to 8 and who like to work with children every Saturday from 10.30 am to 11.30 am (younger children's class) and/or 11.30 am to 12.30 pm (older children's class).

Have a great day and more updates when I am back in my kidsREAD class!

What kidsREAD taught me

This cute girl is in my kidsREAD class and has made good progress in her kidsREAD journey. I was a little bit disappointed that she has not been appearing in my class since the second half of the term has started as I think she can continue to benefit from our reading program and the volunteers can teach her. She has good attitude and is a very fun-loving girl. Her elder sister was also in the program.

What kidsREAD taught me
Life as a volunteer comes with its ups and its downs. Lack of attendance of a child or withdrawal of a child from the program can be due to many factors and not just yourself. Hence, I learn not to take things personally when it does not go my way.

On the contrary, when you see that you are making a real difference in the children's lives, there is a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. It takes time for progress to show up as the children will grow at their own pace. Some of them pick things up very fast, some less so. You need to have determination to see things through even if you do not always get to see the result.

One of the challenges in kidsREAD that I encounter is being able to see visible improvement in my children's reading abilities. Most of the children's time are spent in primary school where the mainstream education system is in charge of their development. The other major part of their lives are spent at home with their family and that is where parents' and siblings involvement in the children's education yields returns. My kidsREAD class is only one hour on Saturday mornings. What can that one hour do? :-)

Having been a volunteer with the Chinese Development Assistance Council for the last six to seven years has taught me patience. While we may not see the immediate results from our efforts, I truly believe that if you do the best that you can and pour some of your life into the children, they will benefit in some ways no matter how small. :-)

Teaching kidsREAD also hones my skills in interacting with children. I now realise I am more relaxed with my class partly because I am familiar with the children. But I also start to relate to them at their level. If they throw tantrums in class, I do not lose my temper. Instead, I throw a mock tantrum back at them and this usually allows them to see how they are behaving. I also learn to interact with the children, allow them to speak and interrupt me sometimes so that there is interactivity. Children get bored very fast and having a two-way communication during the class helps the children get interested in what is happening.

Would you like to learn how to work with children in a reading program? Leave your email in the comments page and I will get in touch with you!

Calling for kidsREAD volunteers

You have been studying and working and find that life has become a meaningless routine. You realise that getting that paper qualification and earning that salary meets your needs but yet doesn't satisfy your soul. You ponder if you can somehow re-ignite the spark in your life, that feeling that there is more to life than just living your own, that you can do more for others, for society and for children...

You have found yourself in my kidsREAD blog!

Is there more to life than work or study
What you are going through is not unique. For a big chunk of my life, I was involved in other extra-curricular activities even as my career started and I have been involved in many different domains as diverse as personal finance to public speaking to teaching children reading skills in kidsREAD. :-)

I discovered from my volunteering activities that while all of us only have 24 hours in a day, our hours become more meaningful when it is applied to endeavours that touch lives.

Your unique experiences shape who you are and who you will become
My toastmastering has allowed me to share a little about myself, my experiences and my soul to others through public speaking.

My personal finance blog allows me to think through my own attitudes about wealth, health and happiness and to sharpen my focus on achieving financial freedom.

My kidsREAD volunteering activities has allowed me to interact with families and especially children from less advantaged families, and allow me to contribute back what the mainstream education system has given me. The gift of knowledge and the privilege of touching lives through something as simple as sharing a story with children.

How about you?
Do you want to touch lives too?
Do you want to leave a meaningful legacy not in dollars and cents but in the memories of young children who remember a volunteer who taught them reading?
Do you want to try something new and experience for yourself the intrinsic joy of giving?

kidsREAD may be for you.

To find out more, please leave a comment to this post and preferably a contact email so that I can get in touch with you. :-)

kidsREAD starts on 30 June at the Jurong Student Service Centre of the Chinese Development Assistance Council.

This is the face of the future

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier.

Two more weeks before kidsREAD restarts at our centre! The picture on the right is that of one of my ex-kidsREAD students. He has graduated from the program and I hope he is doing well in his studies, especially English!

Children are our future. Without children, there would be no continuity and all our endeavours however magnificent will fail to be appreciated unless there is a future generation that can be there to appreciate it.

I do not have children of my own (yet! :-) )and see the kidsREAD class as a way to build skills in relating to children. I have 3 nieces whom I get to see on their birthdays and family gatherings. They are growing up so fast. The eldest is already in Primary Six will will be going onto Secondary school next year.

Time really flies and before you know it, you become mature enough and financially stable enough to go for more adventures but you lose the interest and inclination to pursue them. :-)

Two more weeks before the kidsREAD classes will rejuvenate, revitalise and recharge me for the year ahead!

Interested in kidsREAD? Drop a comment in my comments page and I will get back to you!

Story reading is for you, for me, for everyone!

Contrary to popular belief, the self-help groups do open up their programs to people of all races and religions. I volunteer at the Chinese Development Assistance Council's (CDAC) centre at Jurong West and my class of 7 to 8 year olds include some malay students. The photograph above shows two of them. The boy is 7 year old while the girl on the right with her hand outstretched is eight.

I have seen improvement in both their reading abilities and the girl has been in my class for 1.5 year or so. I remember when she first joined the program, she was fun loving (she still is!) but she didn't have the confidence to read in class. Hence, when it came to her turn to read, she wanted to give it a miss. Over time, as she realised the rest of her classmates were having such a fun time participating in the group reading session, she also decided to join in and have improved tremendously in terms of her attitude and approach to reading. Now she sees it as a fun activity and not a compulsory you must do it sort of activity.

You may be wondering how I conduct my kidsREAD classes. Typically, there is a lot of interaction between myself and the children. You have to get children to warm up as some of them are still not in tune to the class when their mothers bring there there. I would get them to talk by asking them about school, whether exams are coming, what date is it today in the calendar and so on. Pretty soon, once everyone starts coming into the class, I will then start the class reading with me leading in one of the big story books and the children will take turn to read each page as I pause, ask them questions and get them involved in the book.

I didn't know that I enjoyed kidsREAD so much until I got myself involved in this volunteer program. Working with children is fun and I am blessed to have a class of relatively well behaved and very smart children. The common denominator is that their families need a helping hand but other than that they are very bright children with very good potential to go far in their academic work.

If you would like to volunteer to work with children, leave a comment and a contact email so that I can follow up with you!

Story reading is a fun and enriching activity and really it's about learning to read in a condusive environment. It is for you, for me for everyone!

How to get children to learn reading in a relaxed setting

How do children and even adults learn? By being relaxed. ;-)

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Originally uploaded by panzergrenadier.

The picture shows one of my students in the kids-read programme having a whale of a time as we did our group reading using a large ground mat so that the children can jump around and be relaxed.

It was an experiment I tried to see if changing the layout of the classroom would make a difference to how the class progressed. And how it worked!

Children once freed from the confines of their desks and chairs where there is a pre-determined place to sit, a defined space from which to participate in the class, the physical layout imposes rules whether spoken or unspoken about whether you can move around, fidget, explore your space. Once they are set free (as the picture above shows) it allows their natural energy, exuberance and enthusiasm to come forth through them running around, jumping, lying on the mat and trying different types of positions because all this was not possible when they were confined by their desks and chairs.

I found that the lesson was more fun for the children but it made me teaching them somewhat more challenging as they are not so inclined to sit still given the continguous space they were allowed to use. Those children who were more active took advantage of the opportunity to allow their kinesthetic learning styles to emerge! :-)

It was a very energetic class and I found myself literally chasing after some of them as they wanted to even try leaping from the desk onto the ground mat.

Eventually, things got sorted out and we managed to do our class reading as well as break-up into small group reading.

This experiment allowed me to try out another way of teaching the children through exploring the more physical aspects even as we are doing a traditionally sedentary activity such as story reading. It was useful for me to learn to let the children "blow off steam" by allowing them to let their natural energy express itself through they physical movements.

Hmm.. I last tried this format almost a year ago. Perhaps it could be time to try it again this year?

Let's see how it turns out and I will update this blog with the experiment if it is tried again!

Frog and the wide World - Max Velthuijs

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Originally uploaded by lunatic_fringe.

We did "Frog and the wide World" by Max Velthuijs during the kidsREAD class for the group reading. The book reminded me of "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame because of the characters of Rat and Frog who basically went on a journey together to explore the wide world but discovered that home was the best of all because of their friends.

This book was considerably longer than Judy Ling's big picture books and it took me almost 40 minutes to read it together with the children. It has delightful illustrations and a simple storyline. However, the children did feedback that they did not enjoy the story as much as it was too simple even by their standards. There main point about the story was the different emotions that Frog felt as he followed Rat on the journey. He was excited and enthusiastic at first, but his enthusiasm slowly waned as both of them journeyed further and further away from their homes.

That mirrors life in some respects as I believe most of us have embarked on journeys in our life and ultimately, the draw of home and the feeling of homesickness strikes us to a greater or lesser extent and we all heed to unspoken call to head for home sweet home.

I will use this book in future for the more advanced readers because it is more suited for the primary 2 children as it has longer sentences and a wider vocabulary than other books. Its length is also not conducive for a quick read with the children as it gets boring as the hook on "what next" is quite predictable.

Next week will be the last session at our centre before we return on 30 June.

Wishing all volunteers, parents and readers happy June holidays. :-)

Reading to Your Children

Having volunteered with kidsREAD and spending most of my Saturday mornings reading to my class of 7 to 8 year-olds, I realise that reading to children allows us to understand more on our own child's learning styles.

Some children are visual learners. They absorb new words and sentences through looking at the words and figuring out how to read them and to make sense of them.

Others are aural (hearing) learners. They pick up words quickly based on how you pronounce them. Hence, it is important how we read and speak to children as they also pick up the correct and incorrect pronunication from their environment. I have children who cannot read sentences well due to their weak foundation in English but their ability to repeat accurately the word I just read to them was uncanny!

Some children learn by touch and their senses (kinesthetic) which makes them seem fidgety and not able to sit down quietly to read their stories.

All these types of learners can benefit from parents spending time to read to them. :-) Reading stories to children helps visual learners as they can also follow the words and illustrations or pictures in the storybook. Aural learners pick up new words and sounds that are fascinating to them and they relish repeating the choice words and phrases. Kinesthetic learners can interact with pop up books and role play some of the characters and animals in the book.

Reading stories to and with children also allow parents to bond with their children. I can still recall the stories that my father read to me while I was five or six years of age. The story was about a polar bear called Puck. Whilst the details of the book escape me, I can still remember my father's voice reading to me the story. It still warms my heart everytime I remember the time he spent reading to me. Your child may have similar memories when he grows up so invest in his memories now! ;-)

Children develop a life-long love for reading if it is seen as a fun family activity and not homework or a chore to be completed. We can engage our child's sense of fun and excitement about discovering new worlds and situations in stories that engage our intellect and emotions at the same time. We as adults soon re-discover the joy of reading and finding out with our child the excitement of finding out how the story develops.

So parents, go visit the nearest National Library branch and stock up on a lifetime of memories for your children!