One of Green Umbrella’s ECE primary aims is to support a foundation in literacy skills for kindergarten children, aged 4-6 years. This goal has been chosen to support the Pot Sar community where learners often struggle to read successfully, even by the end of primary school. There is a multitude of research that highlights this issue in Cambodia.
There are, of course, many reasons for this;
- Khmer is a challenging language to learn to read and write
- There is an overloaded primary literacy curriculum in grades 1 and 2 public schools
- Classes are very large and often there are too few resources
As we established the goals of the GU ECE program, we asked the questions:
- Would providing early literacy preparation help young children have a head start on the literacy process, as they move into the primary school
- Would children learn how to read and write better?
A sizeable portion of our K program is based on language development. Language development is one of the essentials for reading and writing success. We chose the Khmer language as we felt it educationally appropriate to start children in building their first language, particularly in the Pot Sar community context.
We know that future success in school is based on strong language development of the young student, and we have this as an essential part of the K curriculum at GU. One of the ways we are building language is using good story books. Of course, good books also offer enormous benefits to young children’s social/emotional, vocabulary, comprehension and thinking skills development.
During my teacher training visit in March, I had the exciting opportunity to take a trip to Phnom Penh with three of the early childhood teachers at GU. Dany, Sreymom, Kimsean and I set out early in the morning and headed into the city to look at story books and early readers appropriate for our students.
GU already possess a good number of story books in the library, but the K classes needed more to support the literacy program for the very young. Good children’s books in Khmer have been traditionally challenging to find in Cambodia. Many of those that exist are English books translated into Khmer.
It’s very exciting to see the increase publication of story books in Khmer for younger children. Our group spent several hours at a local publishers called Sipar Publishing. Sipar has a growing collection of children’s books to use in schools for a range of reading needs. The books are colorful and beautifully illustrated with engaging stories set in the local culture. The books are easy to read and leveled to the reading capacities of learners.
There are books that promote social emotional growth, and link to teaching in the health sciences, and social studies areas. Sipar is also endeavoring to foster diversity and inclusivity, for example, offering stories that focus on children with special needs.
The books are very reasonably priced at only a few dollars each and we were able purchase a total of 185 books that day to use at GU. So much enthusiasm for books! What a great gift from our donors. Have a look at Sipar’s website: http://www.sipar-books.com/
Head teacher Dany says that children really love to read books! The books purchased from Sipar have beautiful images which encourage the young children to read. The books also help develop language, thinking, listening, concentration, social and emotional education, and help improve memory. Dany laughs, sharing that Sipar books are also a teaching tool for her and other teachers!
A great way to help GU Kindergarten teachers and students is by making donations for story books. Our campaign is trying to raise $800 for ECE books.
Click HERE to donate any small amount.