This is one in a series of posts from the first ever overseas Reading Camp this year in Grahamstown, South Africa. Kate Gillooly has been visiting the camp this week and sent the following reflection.
Today we had a different schedule. Usually the kids visit 6 learning centers each morning to work on specific reading skills. They spend 30 minutes in each so it takes up the entire morning. Today we were going to a game reserve to see the animals so everything had to be rearranged. At breakfast, Brother Timothy asked one young boy if he was excited to go to the game park. "Yes," he said, "but would they still do the centers?" "Well," said Brother Timothy, "they would shorten them and do half beforehand and perhaps the other half after lunch." For a moment no one at the table spoke. Then the boy said he would rather do centers than see the animals!
The kids are having so much fun with everything they are doing. From learning to read to singing, journals, soccer and crafts and hikes, they are having a blast. It's about the reading. But it is also about new worlds being opened up through new friends, books, bedtime stories, wild animals close up, and people who care for you and care about you and show it in lots of ways. Brother Timothy says part of the reason reading camp matters in South Africa is because we have a generation that went from illiteracy to television. This is still an oral/aural culture but now they get their information from tv. So there is no felt need to learn to read. May this week change that for a few.
-Kate Gillooly has been visiting the first overseas Reading Camp in Grahamstown, South Africa. Kate is the Minister for Christian Formation at St. Paul's, Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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