Description of the project
The project “3MR – making the most of the magic of reading” aims to increase the early literacy skills of children, especially those from culturally less advantaged backgrounds, by preparing professionals involved in early childhood education and parents to engage in reading aloud to children and in book-sharing practices in order to reduce the literacy gap among children from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.
In the last two decades, there have been several studies which have demonstrated that children from home environments which foster literacy practices (where parents frequently read aloud to their children) become better readers and learners. In less culturally advantaged families, parents tend to read less, possess fewer books and probably consider reading as merely a pleasurable activity. This sociocultural gap in early literacy practices impairs school achievement. This is a gap that kindergartens don’t manage to fill as educators lack training and there is no space to give specific attention to the children who need it the most.
ACTIVITIES
- Development of the 3MR training course curriculum.
- Training for teacher educators in Brussels in July 2019.
- Develop a methodological framework for implementation of the curriculum and guidelines for the trainers.
- Testing the training programme on a variety of ECEC professionals during the 2019/2020 academic year.
- Constant evaluation of the curriculum and adaptation to local (national) context.
- Development of a toolkit for teachers and similar professionals who read to small children.
- Development of a toolkit for parents.
RESULTS
- Curriculum of the 3MR training course: curriculum for training professionals to develop their specific competences to read aloud in highly engaging and attractive manner to young children, while also empowering parents/carer to improve the home literate environment.
- 1 train the trainer event (in Brussels)
- Guidelines for implementation of the 3MR – Methodological frameworkfor implementation: The guidelines are a complete and detailed overview of activities, combined good for 30h of training, that has been tested in all partner countries. The training contains of 5 modules: 1) professionals and their relation to reading, 2) Child development and reading, 3) selection of quality picture books, 4) planning, performing and reflecting on read-aloud activities, and 5) engaging parents.
- Basic toolkit for teachers or other similar professionals who read to children. The toolkit aims to support professionals in reading aloud with young children. You can download the toolkit as a brochure here, or see the online toolkit here.
- Basic toolkit for parents to read aloud to their children and improve the home literate environment. You can download the toolkit as a brochure here, or see the online toolkit here.
- 110 trained teachers, nurses, university students, speech therapists, etc. highly skilled to do individual and group read-alouds and with knowledge of how to select age appropriate children’s books, as well as specific skills to empower parents to read aloud to their children.
- 25 volunteers trained to do short read-aloud sessions for young children/toddles.
PARTNERS
- Coordinator: ULiege, Belgium
- Asociatia LSDGC, Romania
- Estonian Reading Association (EstRA), Estonia
- Centro per lo Sviluppo Danio Dolci, Italy
