Learning to Paste One’s Name

The nursery- and kindergarten-age children were the focus during the June 10 DEAR session.

With the aid of an illustrated children book, CARE volunteer reader NINA XIAMINA ALGER went through the 26 letters in the English alphabet, as in “A” is for “Apple,” “Q” is for “Cuba” (sorry, joke only).

After the alphabet reading, the preschoolers had a “cutting” session.  With the aid of volunteers, they cut out the letters of their names from the art paper that has guides for various letters and pasted them on a piece of bond paper.

We guarantee those pieces of paper with their names on them were the kids’ prized possession – at least for the day.

As usual the children had snacks of juice and sandwiches.  And those who were “extra active” in the discussion were rewarded with little goodies bag.

There were 3 new participants for the June 10 session.

During the session the preschoolers also do reading “exercises” taken from the preschool guidebooks, of which CARE has quite a few copies now in its book collection.

We are hoping that sometime soon the grade school participants will be given reading assignments, i.e., stories to read on which they will be asked to answer a short quiz of 5 to 8 questions in the next session.

Now that the school year has started, the DEAR session is now held every other Saturday.  It will alternate between reading (volunteers reading stories) and educational games and art work (drawing and related activities).

The volunteers are also hoping to arrange a little treat during the last session of the month for the participants who are celebrating their birthdays during that month.

We have said that CARE hopes the DEAR session, aside from fostering the habit of reading, also provides a stimulating learning environment – even for only a couple of hours, but on a continuing basis – where children learn to exercise their imagination, develop communication and social skills through interaction with their peers, and build their self-esteem through nurturing by caring adults.

As in the past two sessions, the “reward” for the volunteers was the pleasure of seeing kids enjoy themselves, and the recognition that, as one of them puts it, “the kids appreciate naman what they came for.”

We are happy to report that in the June 10 session, the children started using their library cards to borrow books.

They took home forty-six books altogether.

While they were choosing books, one child was overheard saying, “Mahuram kita ti rako nga libro angod mag-aram kita.”

CARE lives for words such as these.

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Special thanks to our CARE volunteers, especially NINA XIAMINA ALGER, for reading, and MICHELLE ANN LOREDO, for the report.

 

Photos of the June 10, 2006 DEAR session may be viewed here.