By Colin McElwee

I have to say when we put the finishing touches to our iREAD Vacation School I thought of it as a “best we could do but not good enough” kind of gesture to keep kids interested in reading and e-books through the summer.

My visit to Ghana last week however not only assuaged my earlier doubts but also highlighted some unexpected outcomes (we like those, especially when they are positive!). First, between 15 and 20 students attend each of the five daily classes in Kade and Adeiso schools—many more than we expected. Even better, some students have invited their friends who are in other classes or schools and not formally participating in the Worldreader e-reader program. Good sign! Especially if you think that the best recommendation for reading is from the kids themselves.

There was also a totally unexpected insight! Jacqueline, who coordinates the Vacation School for Kade’s primary class mentioned to me that this was the first opportunity for her as a teacher to focus on simply reading in a class context. The curriculum these days often is a choc-a-bloc of different subjects, and the only reading activity is the collective reading in class of the same text. Individual reading of books chosen by students for their own enjoyment is not normally an activity promoted during the school day. And by the time the students get home, they are often bombarded with other tasks, such as household chores or trips to the market, making it difficult for the reading habit to more fully develop.

Jacqueline was struck by the opportunity the Vacation School gave her as a teaching professional to occasionally help the kids or clarify a phrase, without worrying about the normal class routine. Often, though, she simply savoured sitting back and observing the kids engage in the one activity we all wanted them to do, and that is reading for their own pleasure and benefit.

OK, maybe this is not rocket science but it begs a few questions: What if there was an after-school Reading Club so children can keep reading if they wanted to and were able to? What if the Ministry of Education could be persuaded to put aside time in the curriculum for “unstructured” reading activity, time just to enjoy the act of reading for reading’s sake?

Simple and scalable, yes! But, Reading Clubs won’t, of course, address all of the issues surrounding the development of a culture of reading for all of the kids. It will, however, be one more small step towards exactly that.

In the end, habits have to be nurtured and mere access to books may not be sufficient for many. Taking one small step at a time ensures that we are learning progressively how to make the reading habit stick.

By David Risher

Worldreader is conducting a small trial at our US Test Facility (OK, my back yard.)  In June, Jon McCormack took a charger to Kenya to see how it would hold up in the field. It worked well, and will work even better once we address some practical questions about whether to charge directly or load up a battery.  But it’s just not cost-effective to buy a charger for every e-reader.

So the kind folks at Voltaic have done two things: they’ve created a prototype multi-Kindle solar charger to see how many e-readers we can charge simultaneously, and they’re donating a free charger for every charger we purchase.

If we can charge 5 e-readers at once (and we’re up to 3 so far), and we get a free charger for every one we purchase, the cost/e-reader charged declines by a factor of 10, to roughly $9.00/e-reader charging station. That’s still high, and there will be other issues we need to resolve (batteries and heat don’t get along too well), but we’re on the right track.  It’s another great example of how much we rely on the power of partnerships to bring books to all.

 

 

By Jennifer Baljko

 

Ah, the long break between school terms. Is there any better time to kick back and catch up on those books you’ve long been meaning to power through? Knowing what a simple pleasure that is and seeing how quickly our kids in Ghana have latched onto reading, Worldreader recently launched iRead Vacation School.

iRead Vacation School gives the Worldreader students at Adeiso and Kade primary, junior high, and senior high schools access to their e-readers during school vacation, Zev Lowe, director of development research and pilot operations, told us after his trip to Ghana last week. Teachers will be in the classrooms from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday to Friday for the next five weeks. That means our kids can keep trucking through their favorite e-books, too.

The idea for iRead Vacation School came from balancing two immediate needs. On one hand, we wanted to encourage the voracious reading habit we’ve seen kids develop during the last eight months of the trial program. Based on the mid-term results, we know our students are spending 50% more of their time reading than before, and school holidays should be no excuse to stop what’s clearly becoming a good routine.

But, we also wanted to ensure that the e-readers would find their way back to the classrooms when school starts again in September. For any number of reasons, including electricity outages, flooding, and rural infrastructure issues, we were worried that the kids – and their e-readers – may not return immediately after vacation. Keeping the e-readers in the schools and asking teachers to be available in the mornings solved both dilemmas.

Over the next few months, the Worldreader team will be winding down the initial yearlong iRead trial period and ramping up for the next phase. Details are being ironed out as we speak, but  here’s one fun thing we’re putting in place: Kids with good attendance will earn store credit, which they can use to buy whatever book they want. We’re also investigating  solar-charging solutions to keep the e-readers fired up. Zev promises to share the news as it unfolds.

In the meantime, for quick updates follow us on twitter (@worldreaders) or Facebook.

And, of course, enjoy these new photos from Zev.