Within the project ”Adventure Through Readingfunded by the United Way Romania Foundation, the Hercules Association coordinated in 2023 three school reading rooms across the localities of Buftea (School No. 2), Bobești (School No. 2), and Vizurești. The reading room in Buftea was set up in 2022, while the rooms in Bobești and Vizurești were established in 2023.
The initiative by United Way Romania in partnership with local NGOs supports children from socio-economically disadvantaged families, with the fundamental objective of combating functional illiteracy by stimulating a passion for reading.
The project also included an important social dimension, providing essential material support to the participating children.
The Hercules Association arranged the new reading rooms, selected the teachers responsible for implementing the project and involved 180 students in socio-economic vulnerability situations. Three teachers participated in a continuous professional training course called,,Literacy and Critical Thinking for Learning”organized by the “Initiative in Education” Association.
To assess the literacy level of the children, we used the BRIO platform. Throughout the year, students participated in various literacy activities and reading clubs, also taking part in small events. Periodically, they received material support consisting of packages with basic food products, and at Christmas they enjoyed gifts. The teachers responsible for these activities met monthly with parents to discuss the progress and development of the children.
Involving parents in this project and raising their awareness about the importance of reading is an essential component of ,,Adventure Through Reading”.
To illustrate the impact of this initiative, we present the words of Mrs. Mariana Ghiulai, a primary school teacher at School No. 2 Buftea, coordinator of her school’s reading club and a dedicated volunteer at the BufKids Day Center, a flagship project of the Hercules Association.
,,We started the activities at the Reading Club with a lot of fear, thinking that not all children would participate in these sessions, that they would not make progress in reading, and that they would not engage in the activities I had planned.
The biggest impact on the children at the beginning of the Reading Club was the place where we conducted most of the activities: the library. The fact that, through this project, the school library received a new ,,appearance”, being equipped with new furniture (sofas, tables with chairs, stools, bookshelves, coat racks, and rugs), led to a true success. The children were very impressed when they entered the new library for the first time, one of them exclaiming: ,,It’s like we are in a living room!”
Not only the children in the project came here gladly, but also other children from the school. The teacher in charge of the library (we do not have a librarian position in the school) was overwhelmed by many children who came very early to school (often 30-40 minutes before classes started) to read in this welcoming environment.
A major highlight of this project was my participation in the continuous professional development course,,Literacy and Critical Thinking for Learning”organized by the ,,Initiative in Education” Association, a course that is part of the national projectAdventure Through Reading”, initiated by the United Way Romania Foundation. Everything presented during the course was incredibly useful: we shared best practices exemples, insights, while also discovering new ways to engage children in reading, with the goal of preventing and combating functional illiteracy among vulnerable youth.
Over these months, as the project took place, I looked for stories and books from the children’s immediate universe, with attractive themes: school, family, animals, nature, fantasy. I combined classic literature, Romanian and universal (Ion Creangă, Emil Gârleanu, Ion Luca Caragiale, Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen) with current stories and books (Gellu Naum, Lavinia Braniște, Jeff Kinney, Rachel Renee Russell, Michael Bond, Raymond Briggs, Roald Dahl). Many of these books were donated to us through this project, being read both by children in the Reading Club and by other children in the school.
The activities I proposed and conducted with the students during the course were diverse: reading stories/books, dramatizing fragments, watching films, puzzles, contests, comics based on the read stories, crosswords. To make all these activities attractive to the students, I used methods and techniques for text comprehension: Predictive Reading, 3 Reasons to Recommend a Book, Collaborative Story, Talkative Covers, Text Map, Time Axis, Text-self, Text-text, Text-world, Venn Diagram, etc. All these reading stimulation activities took place in a playful format, in this relaxing environment, so that children could discover the joy of reading, discover and understand many answers to unanswered questions. I tried to encourage dialogue among children, making them express their own opinion, supporting it with their own words.
Most children were very involved in these activities, first timidly, then with more confidence. There are children who made great progress in reading, children who competed to read as much as possible. There are also cases where the progress was not very visible, but I believe that participation in these activities was still a great benefit for them; collaborative learning, teamwork, paired reading, role-playing, and dramatizations were moments they experienced intensely, gaining some confidence in their abilities. For some of them, the meal provided during activities was a real help.
We also had monthly meetings with the children’s parents; in these meetings we presented information on student progress regarding school performance through increased interest in reading. We discussed topics of interest such as: Reading Together: Parent-Student; How to Help My Child with Homework; Learning Together; Child Supervision; Child Free Time. In these meetings, we presented: ideas to encourage reading at home, examples of good practices from Reading Club sessions, ways to stimulate children’s reading and creativity. Some parents were very involved in their children’s reading education, proving that they understood the goal of the project: they read the recommended readings at home with them, read magazines together. In some children, the progress in reading and comprehension of texts was visible; also, progress was seen in how parents help their children with homework.
Both parents and children sincerely appreciated the trip organized to the Paper Mill in Comana, Giurgiu County. The activities carried out there (weaving on a loom, making dolls from corn cobs, visiting the printing museum), activities that preserve and transmit Romanian craft traditions, were unique for most children.
Receiving school supplies from the project funders at the beginning of this school year was a great help for parents, contributing to equal opportunities for the children enrolled in the project with others. The fact that every child in the project received a backpack and the necessary school supplies has been a major success, ensuring that all students are fully equipped for the current academic year. Additionally, clothing and footwear received at the beginning of the school year were an unexpected help for many families in difficulty; the children wear them with joy.
The project ,,Adventure through Reading” is an initiative that helps everyone: children, teachers, parents, the local community, being a sure path for improving the future of children.”
