How parents can intervene: Active campaigns



READING MAKES FRIENDS, BE FRIENDS WITH BOOKS!



The words of Nelson Mandela "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world". During this past week I conducted a survey as well as interviews to parents, to find out how they feel about their childrens education and their commitments to it. An alarming number of 18 out of 20 parents felt that their kidz and teens are not doing well at secondary and tetiary. When I conducted my research , I came across interesting campaigns that are helping parents to intervene in this issue at an early stage.

There are campaigns such as Born to Read, Read to Bond which are taking over, A programme designed to encourage parents to inculcate reading habits in their children at an early age and to promote reading as an activity that bonds a family.

Parents are guided on their child's reading and learning journey even before the child is born. At the libraries, expectant mums or parents of newborns (born from 1 Jan 2007) will receive a package containing a baby journal (which provides parents with spaces to record their child's developmental milestones and also comes with an informational guide on parenting), Audio CD (contains stories, rhymes, poems and instrumental lullabies), height chart (not only providing the height for the child but also recommended reading tips at child’s different development stages) and parenting brochures from Ministry of Community Youth and Sports.

To promote reading as a child-bonding activity for parents with children 0-6 years, care packs are given to expectant parents containing:

• Baby Journal (Journaled milestones & 25-page information guide)
• Baby's First CD (for foetus to enjoy; parents to learn to tell stories, nursery rhymes and lullabies)
• Baby's Height Chart (indicate baby's developmental milestones and appropriate reading)

A nationwide movement to encourage fathers to read to their children on a regular basis was brought to attention. This initiative aimed to increase fathers' involvement in their children's literacy development and to improve the quality of father-child relationships.

A volunteer driven programme, kidsREAD was launched by then DPM Lee Hsien Loong on 23 April 2004. The aim of this nation-wide programme is to reach out to children between the ages of 4 and 8 from the low-income families to promote the love of reading and cultivate good reading habits from young.
Reading Clubs around are establsihed to maintain the eager.

COULD THIS BE THE CATCH...?

Using social and personal preferences to make learning/studying more interesting

Do you ever feel dumb around other people? Are you embarrassed when you don’t know the answer to a question? Do you perhaps panic when lecturers give back test/ exam scripts?

Within this week most of us received our semester test back, which were not looking good at all. As we walked from and to classes, I could hear students justifying themselves by saying “the chapters were too much to study/learn, one can’t know everything or the test was difficult anyway”. I asked myself that how we could have students that get 70-80% whilst others get 30-40 and 50% but we all wrote the same test. Majority of us are guilty, when semester tests/ exams approach us, we tend to learn/study under pressure because we are forced to remember everything form the classes we slept through, refer/read books we never even bought and somehow convince our bodies that sleep isn’t that important at the time.

How can we make learning, reading and studying more fun?

1.      Rap music: using concepts, processes and terms as lyrics of the song we would rap about.
2.      Dance: we could use theory, concepts, processes, and terms as styles, steps and counts as we       would in a dance routine.
3.     Acting:  using the content material of this knowledge area.
4.     Poems:
5.     Singing out the work.

These methods that would appeal to our social and personal preferences would be more interesting. Once the interest has been evoked it wouldn’t be so monstrous for us to open our books.

We could study less, even have a little fun and still do well on our tests and exams through our social and personal preferences.

Experiencing knowledge in another level: Johannesburg City library reopens

The Johannesburg City library reopened on Tuesday (13 March 2012), according to *Daily Maverick* newspaper (16 March 2012).The library was closed since April  2009 and three years later it reopens with
physical and functional changes.It is said to be " a
community asset and learning centre of excellence".

It now incorporates a contemporary style featuring three new stories which are positioned in the centre of the building. It cost about R68 million. Funding of R26 million came from the Camegie Corporation of New York to upgrade and increase the range of library services. The city spent a further R55 million on the project. Changes included the library being able to accomaodate 556 people prior to 225 people before. It has over 1.5 million books with more than 250 000 million members.

The library consists of:

• study and reading spaces
• meeting discussion areas
• Information Technology centres
• Art, films, video gallaries

This contributes to the South Africa's long-term efforts to promote social, economic and educational opportunities that have a positive effect on disadvataged populations.

Could this be adding a greater degree of comfort and interest in spending our time in the library?

Granting equal access to the tools that make knowledge possible

                      

Capacity building: Read, Learn,Study

 Capacity building: Read, Learn,Study

I've discovered and observed something  quite interesting about the youth. It's amazing how we can naturally memorise the words of a song, names of celebrities and gossip but we struggle to learn a subject/ module at school. Why do we learn somethings more easily than others?

Knowledge is key

We have lost interest in the most significant. Pollster Hart showed that students do not position the same value on reading/ learning for fun as do thier parents and teachers.Only 34% of students ranked reading skills as important. This figure is alarming as it has effects that enhance literacy, fluent language, capacity builing, spelling and son on. The dramatic decline in reading starts from the ages 17-23. This has eroded the publics confidence in the education systems.

The youth study when they're forced to, due to circumstances such as assignments, examination pressure, class work etc. Why is this? We tend to think that time spent is not a measure of amount accomlpished. Technological aspects have dominated our socities. Students spend most of  their time using  gadgets such as video games and social networks namely facebook, instant messaging and so on.Some reasons focused on are grade inflation where students know they can get reasonable grades without much studying because they settle for less than A's ( 50% is a pass). Students have full-time jobs because they have to pay for their studies. The are exposed to money from parents and whosoever which results in  spending their time on eating, drinking, shopping and entertainment. The abundance of precrastination vehicles contribute.

Findings/ statistics used by the National  Right to Read foundation states:

•  32% of those who can't read basic material are son and daughters of college graduates
• 85% of deliquent children and 75% of adult prison inmates are illetrate
• The cost of taxpayers of adult literacy is $224 billion a year in wlefare payment, crime , job incompetence, lost taxes and remedial education
• Comapnies loose nearly $40 billion anually because of  illetrate

 Reading and learning campaigns such as Multi-Year Literacy, LITCAM and Born Learning Campaigns emphasise: Succesful  study is often about meeting competing demands and deadlines. Prior knowlegde linked to new material with your past experience will help one read more effectively. This helps in:

1. Locating specific information and difficult ideas 
2. Gaining an overview of something
3. To relax and escape to a novel

My suggestion would be to make sure that we buy novels whereby at the end of raeding the book we exchange/rotate the books with each other. This increases an interest in reading/studying and enhances capacity building. DO WE LEAVE THE FLAME DYING?

LETS BUILD A BRIGHTER FUTURE HAVING TOMORROW'S LEADERS.