Aloud Express brings language to underprivileged families
Because the AOb Twenty years ago, the union is giving the VoorleesExpress 20 reading packages as a gift. The VoorleesExpress lets volunteers in underprivileged families read aloud. "Kindergarten teachers in particular have a good idea of which children it is good to participate in."
Picture: Fred van Diem
De AOb donates forty reading packages. Such a package means that one volunteer - often a pedagogy student or a slightly older person who has worked in education - is trained by the VoorleesExpress and receives materials to get started. The school must recruit the volunteer itself. He or she then comes home to the family for a period of twenty weeks to read to the child or children. Parents watch and learn.
“The basic idea is that all parents are motivated to give their children what is within their means and this is often more than they think,” says Naomi van Ringelenstein of the VoorleesExpress. The foundation wants to empower the parents and let them be a language example, even if they cannot read and write themselves.
Free reading package
In consultation with the parents, teachers can register students for the AOb donated (and therefore free) package. "Especially kindergarten teachers, who have relatively much contact with parents, quickly identify which children would benefit from participating," says Bernadet Dankaart, internal supervisor at the Marcus School in Utrecht. This school is located in Overvecht, a so-called multi problem district, and has been participating in the VoorleesExpress for five years.
Read Dankaart's experiences and more about the reading packages in Education magazine article by Mandy Arrow. Or go to the website of the AloudExpress.
