Reading Camp: A Way out of Reading Difficulties

Children’s reading skills in primary school are very poor in Ethiopia in general. The situation at the primary school of Wonchi District was even far deeper than many other areas. An initial baseline reading skill assessment conducted at Wonchi primary schools by World Vision and Save the Children reveals that more than 40 per cent of the children at primary school are unable to read words and paragraphs, identify between letters, consonants and vowels.

Children’s reading skills in primary school are very poor in Ethiopia in general. The situation at primary school of Wonchi District was even far deeper than other areas. An initial baseline reading skill assessment conducted at Wonchi primary schools by World Vision and Save the Children reveals that more than 40 per cent of the children at primary school are unable to read words and paragraphs, identify between letters, consonants and vowels.
Dawit Shumeme, a 4th grade student is a case in point: “Before joining this reading camp, I only knew the A, B, C…, but could not read texts. I did not know the difference between consonants and vowels. When I took text exams, I used to answer by guess,” confesses the 10-year-old Dawit.
Elfinesh Hailu, 38, is a teacher. She admits the reading skill difficulties of the students.
“Our children complete grade 4 without having enough skill of reading. This is shame for me as a teacher. I believe that our child unfriendly teaching methodology, inability of preparing teaching aids from locally available materials, lack of skill of managing large classroom size are the major contributors our students’ weak reading skill performance,” she boldly explains.
Through funds secured from World Vision Hong Kong and in collaboration with Save the Children and the local government educational office, World Vision piloted a literacy Boost project at Wonchi and Hidabu Abote Area Development Programmes (ADPs) and has begun implementing literacy boost project as of March 2012. The project is aimed at increasing the percentages of children who are able to read at functional levels by age 11.
In this regard, World Vision trained 180 volunteer reading camp leaders and community facilitators and 130 teachers and supervisors from eight intervention schools with relevant reading skill knowledge at Wonchi. Through reading camp facilitators, it provided awareness creation training to 2,803 parents.
So far 49 print rich reading camps (village level child-friendly reading centres) are opened at Wonchi District across 60 villages. Children meet on weekends to practice reading skills at each camp with the help of volunteer reading camp leaders. Each reading camp has its own book banks where students can access reading materials.
Chitu, about 123 kilometres southwest of the capital, Addis Ababa, is one of the 49 reading camps. Close to 40 children are attending at this camp. The walls of the camp are filled with eye catching print materials. Some of the letters are associated with familiar animals’ names, some with cultural things, and some others with local materials. The posted materials can give a hint to someone who doesn’t know the letter and to children who have already some introduction with letters and words.
The friendly reading materials, informal interactions along with sound teaching methodology have incredibly improved children’s reading skill.
“This reading camp has improved my reading skill remarkably. I can now identify between letters and read stories. Previously, my mum had to knock the doors of our neighbours to ask them to read text of any kind, but today I can do the reading for her,” happily explains the 11-year-old Shewaye.

Dawit is also excited to part of the reading camp.
“The way we learn at this reading camp has entirely changed our core reading skill performance. We learn everything in fun. We learn through games, story times, songs and activities. Once we learn this way, we will not forget. I have now reached from the point of not identifying a single letter to reading a text. I once was answering text exams by guessing, but now I can read and respond accordingly,” proudly explains Dawit.
Abinet Tesfaye is a reading camp community volunteer at Chitu.
“In the first three months, I was desperate of their core reading skill performance and was even to quit volunteering. As I continued helping them, I saw amazing improvements. Now I feel proud on being part of this great job,” he gladly elaborates. Looking back to his own school time,” Abinet says. “Had I been availed these opportunity during my primary school days, I would have been somebody by now.”
World Vision, in partnership with Save the Children, has successfully implemented the literacy boost pilot program in Wonchi and Hidabu Abote ADPs. It trained 200 teachers from 15 intervention schools, capacitated 322 volunteer reading camp leaders and community facilitators, established 91 Reading camps and distributed 17,550 books to reading camps and intervention schools. In doing so it is able to address 8,350 children with reading skills.
The reading camp demand is very high following its successful achievements. World Vision is now planning to scale up the literacy boost projects in 25 ADPs in Oromia Region, three ADPs in Amhara region, four ADPs in Tigray region and Dollo Ado refugee response program through sponsorship education programme.