5 Success factors that guarantee reading improvement at your school

Any school can be successful in empowering every learner to obtain the adequate reading skills required to complete every school year, feeling confident, hopeful and inspired to fulfil their dreams and passion in life.

Based on our experience over the past twenty two years, our team at Stimulus Maksima! identified the following factors that will guarantee success in your pursuit to improve reading and academic improvement at your school.

Overall Awareness

An overall awareness strategy regarding adequate reading skills involving all educators in the school is an essential part of a learn to read and reading improvement project’s success. Educators seldom realise the negative impact of learners’ inadequate reading skills on their own subjects. Regular work sessions with all educators and school management to discuss progress and determine future reading and academic strategies are essential.

Dedicated Computer Centre

A correctly set up computer centre equipped with the following:

Sufficient number of computers. The number of computers in the computer centre must at least be equal to the number of learners in the biggest class. For example if the number of learners in the biggest class in the school has 45 learners in the class, the computer centre should host at least 45 workstations, preferably linked to a server via a network.
Relevant computer operating systems.
A printer capable to prepare material for presentations and generate management and individual reports will be needed.
A projector and projector screen correctly positioned, is essential for proper presentations.
Adequate and reliable technical support.

Dedicated Educator

A competent and dedicated educator who is willing to become the reading skills development and improvement expert as well as a change agent in the school.

This educator needs to:

Be full time available in the computer reading centre to present the classes assigned to the project.
Undergo supportive and extensive training to run and manage the project.
Be in regular contact with the school principal, heads of language departments, junior phase and language educators of the school, to keep up with the language curriculum’s requirements, integrate content as far as possible and give regular feedback of observations and results.
Be passionate about language and the ability to read.
Be passionate about learner progress and success.
Understand the school’s academic strategy and goals.
Understand the impact of adequate reading skills on the academic performance of each learner, class, grade and the school as a whole.

Structured Timetable

To keep up with requirements of each school year, learners should have enough and regular exposure to the program that ensures sufficient practice in overcoming gaps or maintaining adequate reading skills.

This entails the following:

At least one well structured, fun-filled and productive 40 minute session per week will maintain adequate reading skills and provide exercise to learners who lack sufficient reading on their own.
Extra exposure facilitated by the trained reading educator needs to be scheduled for learners who do not have adequate reading skills, in other words, when their reading skills are inadequate for their grade.

Learn to Read and Reading Improvement System.

Implement an adequate, reliable and proven learn to read and reading improvement system with the following abilities:

Assist learners with problems as well as learners who want to perform better than their grade.
Have easy to use home use facilities.
Proper computer based monitoring which captures reading improvement results real-time on learner level as well as reporting information on learner, class and grade level to empower educators and school managements in taking informed decisions.

Learners with adequate reading skills for their grade will most likely enjoy and successfully master all other school subjects. Though they may not like the content, they will still have the skill to master the content, pass examinations and promote their overall school achievement.

Our team at Stimulus Maksima! offers tools and solutions that help our clients, from toddlers to adults, to improve their English and Afrikaans reading and learning skills. Find out more about how we do it by visiting our website: www.stimulusmaksima.co.za