A visit to Westlake

It is always great to visit a centre that is using the Shine methods and feel the continuity of ethos and practice. Bea visited Westlake earlier this week, and came back with a glowing report.The day she was visiting, a team of educational delegates from the Eastern Cape were visiting to watch 'best practice.' It is satisfying to think that every visitor takes something away with them, however small. We just want our simple and efficient methods to spread countrywide!

Sharleen runs the centre with smooth efficiency

Mrs Diamond, the principal ( in glasses at the back) watches on as the delegates familiarise themselves with the programme

Happy learning partners

Book Buddies at Zenzeleni,Khayelitsha

Pupils from Zenzeleni engrossed during their Book Buddy session

A great report on Book Buddies landed in my in-box from Themba, who is heading up the community work for Shine. I thought I should share an extract....'After a few attempts, thwarted by service delivery disruptions, Maurita and I finally managed to visit the Zenzeleni Waldorf School in Khayelitsha to see the Book Buddies programme that we launched at the school in June of this year. Book Buddies is a programme that is designed to pair students of different grades to read together using the method of Paired and Shared Reading. The older children read to the younger children, with the idea of improving the literacy of the children at the school, and instilling the love of books throughout the school! 

When we arrived, the Grade 6 class welcomed us with an energy that said ‘this is part of our weekly activity and we own this'.We walked around the class and listened to the reading: some of the children had found interesting ways to share comprehension skills. Maurita did a little impromptu training, sharing some other ways to learn and teach comprehension with the children.

In comparison to most schools on Khayelitsha, Zenzeleni is a relatively small school that provides a very different approach to teaching and learning. We are very excited to be able to share this journey with the school, and we would like to see the Book Buddies programme grow and expand into other schools. We noticed that the children ‘flew’ through the material, and we realized that we needed to increase the level of difficulty of books because we want to challenge them with their reading. We plan to learn from this pilot project and improve it if needed. 

The Zenzeleni children are our first Book Buddies ever! We are very proud of their dedication and commitment to their own learning. We will be monitoring the school very closely and we plan to keep you up to date about the progress of Book Buddies.'      

Grade 6's and 4's reading together 

--

Book Buddies!

A message from Joan in Durban

We received a lovely email from Joan in Durban today, who has started to use the Shine games at her centre. I thought I would  post an extract: 'Thank you for all the amazing games...I have been meaning to take photo's of the volunteers and kids with the new games but keep getting distracted because we are all having so much fun! Most volunteers have been a little reluctant to start at Game one. There is a wonderful attitude of "My child is FAR too clever for this!" I think that really shows what wonderful relationships have been built between our learning partners. I have, however insisted they do start at the beginning and work through them all even though 'their' child is exceptional! 

What amazes me is the amount of thought that has gone into these games. Most of the children were able to say the sound that a particular letter makes and yet still needed Game two to enforce the beginning sounds.... Every game seems to give them more than what I could hope. What a privilege to have access to such amazing resources and to be able to invest them in these kids. Thanks again!

We are very happy to be able to share our resources with others: we are in the process of working with others so that they can become Shine Chapters: we just want to get our methods and resources out to others who are doing the same kind of work as us, and the games are a wonderful vehicle for this. 

A wipe sheet 

First sound lotto

End sound safari