PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – With ten participants story reader, two teacher-facilitators, tree coachers and a project leader,
Beyond Kultura Events Foundation (BKE) kicked off on Friday 11 th October its ‘STORY-READING FOR CHILDREN’ program in Philipsburg. President of the BKE, Loekie Morales is very happy with the turn out and enthusiastic participants.
This story reading program is a valuable, educational and mind-fun program for children on Sint Maarten.
Morales: ‘Reading is FUNdamental and the training is about getting our youngsters to like reading and have FUN doing it. Next to this, Listening and Reading well are considered fundamental skills for understanding of the content.
Beyond Kultura has developed this Reading program a couple of years ago. The main beneficiaries are children from 3 to 13 years old. Ten entities like schools and community centers are participating to this STORY READING program. Project leader Ingrid Holaman will keep all the involved parties focused towards Beyond Kultura’s aim.
This Story READING training starts with a 10 hours weekend workshop for adults. Story Reader Participants will get into the fundamentals of ‘Listening and Reading skills’. Besides important technical tricks, much attention will be given to the pleasure that reading provides and the value of reading in the various areas of development of the child.
Aidan Chambers’ reading circle will be used for explaining the reading process.
Participants will be introduced to the techniques of reading aloud. Attention will also be given to the usage of voice, story outline, body language, props and sense of the listening audience. The book functions, the writer & illustrator behind the books, and how to deal with E-books, reading rom tablets and computer are also covered.
BKE has recruited two local Teacher-facilitators Greta Marlin, who was a volunteer reader at the Sister Borgia Elementary school for 7 years, and Myrna Richardson, an educator who speaks daily to children about the importance of reading and writing correctly. Both teacher-facilitators love to engage children in active reading.
Practical part: As of 14th of October until half December, the participants will visit schools, afternoon activity programs and community centers. Each one will read stories in 8 reading sessions of 15 to 45 minutes to children, depending on the age groups. During this period, story readers will be coached and evaluated by one of the assigned coachers Vernon Illidge, Joyce Hanley and Fraenseen Fawler. At the end of the program, they will get a certificate ‘Introduction Story Reading’, if they successfully have finalized both, the theory and the practical part of the training.
Morales: ‘We are most grateful for the commitment and financial support of the Prince Bernhard Cultural Fund Caribbean, the Collaborative Funds Caribbean and the Nederlandse Taal Unie, a Dutch Literacy Funding Agency. Because of them, Beyond Kultura is able to train dedicated people in our society to become good story readers and give some 2000 children fun in reading, getting them to love books, get a passion for literature and build up their vocabulary, imagination and expression skills’.
Photo: Story reader participants, coachers, teacher-facilitators, project leaderand BKE’s president during the kick off of Beyond Kultura’s Reading for Children program.
