Summertime Reading

Written by Nguyen Thi Thuy Van, PA – Education, Dong Giang ADP

Summer in 2014 was very memorable for A Lang Hau, an 11-year-old boy living in a small village in the south of Vietnam.  

“[This summer] was the first time I’ve ever been to a reading club. I didn’t just read books though; I also joined in with many other activities with my friends,” he says.

A Lang Hau is among over one hundred children from four villages in Dong Giang district, Quang Nam province to have participated in World Vision-supported reading clubs.

Once a month, the young club members gather in their villages’ communal ‘guol’ houses, which are the traditional meeting places for the K’Ho ethnic minority, to read and play together.

Parents and teachers volunteer to help the children understand the books, before discussing how the youngsters can use the skills and behaviours mentioned in real life.

World Vision has given 40 books to each club, with the reading matter highlighting life skills and positive values. To diversify the range of books, the clubs also partner with local schools, with the volunteer teachers bringing along school library books to the monthly gatherings.

Many of the parents who volunteer never had the chance to go to school, so now they want to help their children to have better lives by learning to read well.

A Lang Hau’s mother, Bnuoch Thi Tu, says: “Now my son has the reading club to go to in the summer. Before, he often played in rivers or other unsafe places because there’s no playground in my village. So having the club is great for local children.”

One year after the reading clubs opened, the proportion of grade-five pupils living in the Dong Giang ADP region who are able to read at the age-appropriate level has improved from 73% in 2013 to 83% in 2014.