Using Reading to Change the School's Ten Years of Reading Exploration in an "Endangered" Village Elementary School
Children in Sanlitun Primary School are reading picture books.
The students of Sanlitun Primary School read the contents of "The Day You Recite" in the morning.
Reading scenes of students in the picture book reading room of Sanlitun Primary School.
Picture B06-B07/Picture courtesy of Sanlitun Primary School
It has become a habit for Zhang Minlei to take time to read a book for a while every day.
At noon on April 12, she put down the book in her hand and planned to go to each class for a round.
Zhang Min is the principal of Sanlitun Primary School in Mengzhuang Town, Xinxiang City, Henan Province.
When she went to the class, it was time for silent reading at noon, and the children in several classes were reading quietly.
"It feels like the children are slowly climbing up without knowing it, and the small campus is soaked in the fragrance of books."
This is a rural elementary school located at the junction of urban and rural areas. It currently has 6 classes and 188 children.
Because it is close to the county seat, the source of students is lost from time to time.
In 2009, when the situation was the worst, Sanlitun Primary School only enrolled 12 children in the first grade. There were only 3 classes in the school, with a total of 45 children and 4 teachers.
The town government once wanted to tear down this school.
It is such a rural elementary school that may disappear at any time. Since 2010, it has decided to "change the school with reading."
Written by/Beijing News reporter Feng Qi
1 From the teacher's own expense to buying books to nearly 4,000 books
Wang Yijuan, a teacher at Sanlitun Primary School, still remembers the difficulties she had experienced when she first tried to teach her children to do morning recitations before 2010.
The book used by Chen Chan is the "Ri You Sheng Chan" developed by Children's Mother Tongue Education Organization "Close to Mother Tongue". She went to Xinhua Bookstores in the county town. The clerk said that she had never heard of this book. Parents were not interested in buying textbooks other than textbooks. The book disagrees even more.
At that time, there was no internet in the school, so Wang Yijuan borrowed other people's computers and learned to buy books online.
At her own expense, she bought a copy of "A Day You Chan" for each child.
Many teachers in the school also bought books spontaneously and at their own expense. Educational books such as "Reading Manual" and "Xue Ruiping Education Teaching Questions and Answers" are used to improve themselves. "Grandpa Must Have a Way" and "Rainbow Flowers" are picture books bought and brought with you. The children watch it together, and read story books such as "The Wizard of Oz" to the children.
"Ten years ago, there were few books in the school library, and they were too old to be worth reading." In 2011, Zhang Min came to this school to serve as the principal through competition and found that the school's book resources were extremely scarce.
But buying books at their own expense is not a long-term solution.
Starting in 2012, Zhang Min decided to allocate 200 yuan to each class from the limited school funds to let the Chinese teacher purchase books. "That was our first source of books."
"Non-profit organizations and foundations have helped us a lot." Zhang Min told reporters that at that time, Kong Xiaoyan, a teacher of Kaiyuan Primary School in Luoyang's Gili District and a core member of the main task force for the close to mother tongue, helped the school contact and connect with the China Overseas Foundation Book Project.
"At the time they asked us what books we wanted. What we lacked most at the time was picture books." After that, the school paid half of the money, and the foundation paid the other half. In 2014, the first batch of books was approved and sent to Sanlitun Primary School. .
Zhang Min said that the foundation's book delivery team is very professional and selects books suitable for children to read.
Due to the good use of these books by the school, the foundation later distributed the books to the school twice, and they were all free from the second time.
In recent years, Sanlitun Primary School has successively received many books donated by various charity organizations.
In 2020, the school received a part of donated books, covering science, music, art, history, geography and other fields, greatly expanding the scope of children's study.
In addition to the hundreds of books funded by the local government in 2017 to equip the school, there are now about 4,000 books in the library of Sanlitun Elementary School.
2 Teachers who like to read are the school "bonanza"
"The reason why we were able to persevere is because there are several very dedicated teachers in the school." In addition to the book resources, Zhang Min is most proud of the teachers at Sanlitun Primary School.
In her eyes, these teachers are the “rich mine” of the school.
Before Zhang Min came to work at the school, a teacher at Sanlitun Primary School was persistently teaching children to read.
This teacher is Wang Yijuan, "She prefers reading books herself."
Around 2007, when everyone was still unfamiliar with the scholarly campus, the class led by Wang Yijuan had already started reading.
"In the beginning, I didn't have this awareness. I occasionally saw some short stories in the book, and I felt good, so I read it to the children; later, slowly, I started to read in the class."
Later, in an online education forum, Wang Yijuan accidentally came into contact with the "Day You Recite" project.
"I remember very clearly that the post was called'Xing Xing Xing Xing Xing'. It was here that I found Riyou Chanting, so I got in touch with Teacher Xue Ruiping. It was also from this forum that I learned about the concept of picture books and I bought them online. I wrote some picture books to read to my own children and lead the children in my class to read them."
Wang Yijuan will also use some ingenious "little gifts" as prizes for children with outstanding reading performance.
"Our financial situation does not allow ourselves to spend money to buy prizes, but I do want to give the children a little incentive." She saw the phone card sold by her husband, and after removing the small card, there were a lot of discarded large cards. "Material" was used as a prize by her.
"Although it is not expensive at all, the children are very active, and there are also children who tape a few cards together to make a pen holder."
Her efforts paid fruit.
In 2015, Mr. Wang Yijuan, who was the first to practice reading in school, was shortlisted as the annual lamplighter of "Reading Changes China" sponsored by the mother tongue.
When attending a reading training in Nanjing with her native language, Wang Shuanling and Wang Yijuan, another teacher from the school, went with them.
It was this precious opportunity that opened a new and crucial door in Wang Shuanling's career as a teacher.
"In the few days in Nanjing, I listened to lectures by many writers and experts. When I heard it, I turned out to be too narrow-minded. It turns out that reading has so many benefits and so important. On the other hand, the reading situation of rural children is really not optimistic."
Jim Trillis' "Reading Manual" also gave Wang Shuanling a lot of inspiration.
"The author has thoroughly analyzed the impact of reading on a person's life. I feel more and more, since such a good thing, why not let the students do it?" After Wang Shuanling returned, she immediately began to promote the children to read.
Driven by them, other teachers and classes in the school also joined the reading action.
This made Zhang Min very happy, "Under such a situation, with a slight push on the school level, the whole school spread out, and the atmosphere gradually became stronger."
Zhang Min told reporters that the strategy she adopted was to weaken the appraisal and strengthen the encouragement.
"The school has never imposed mandatory requirements on the teachers in this regard, but I will praise and encourage them for doing well."
3 It is found that reading leaves "marks" on children
"In the beginning we were a little behind closed doors."
Zhang Min said frankly that due to the lack of guidance in the early stage and many detours, the teachers grew slowly.
Starting in 2013 and 2014, the source of Sanlitun primary school students was a little better and the funds were a little more adequate, and Zhang Min began to take the teachers out.
"In 2019, we went out most frequently, participating in reading forums or reading workshops and training courses all over the country."
After going out, the teachers at Sanlitun Elementary School saw that many people were doing the same thing as themselves, and they were doing more professionally.
At that time, Wang Yijuan realized, "It turns out that children's reading needs more professional guidance. Not only must the children read the entire book, but the entire book also needs guidance."
"It's just reading. It's completely different from guiding children to read." After returning from study, Zhang Min and the teachers began to do teaching and research. Each semester carried out teaching and research for different reading sections and content, and then slowly added the entire book to the reading guidance teaching and research. .
Then, take two classes a week as reading classes.
"Extracurricular reading is internalized, and in-class reading is systematized."
With the gradual formation of the reading system, the school also ushered in a "brilliant moment" and the return of students.
In 2016, Sanlitun Primary School was shortlisted for the annual scholarly campus of “Reading to Change China” as a native speaker.
Subsequently, the school hosted the "First Children's Reading in Mengzhuang Town" and the "Children's Reading" in Huixian City, Henan Province, and participated in the "World Reading Day" exhibition held in Huixian City, Henan Province as the only rural primary school.
In 2018, the total number of students in the school's six classes increased to 292.
Zhang Min told reporters that from the beginning of this semester, learning will also take children to recite in the form of a community, allowing interested children to perceive the artistic conception of ancient poems through rhyme.
There is a young boy in the class led by Wang Shuanling, who likes to read books, but writing essays is very slow.
"In the third grade, he was learning to write essays. His expression was very poor. He couldn't write a paragraph in one class or two. But recently I found out that after the fourth grade, the boy wrote the composition although not long, but The content is very substantial, and there are almost no wrong sentences, they are all fluent and have a good sense of language."
Wang Shuanling firmly believes that although a lot of reading can't see immediate results, long-term persistence in reading will definitely improve.
Wang Yijuan also noticed the changes in the children in her class.
There is a child in her class, who is usually regarded as "naughty".
"In the first grade, other children could read word by word, only he was sitting there and flipping through the books, and couldn't stand it." Slowly, under the influence of the environment, the child could sit in the upper grades. Read it quietly.
4 It is difficult to change the concept of parents, but we still have to go all out
The principals and teachers of Sanlitun Primary School felt that in the process of reading promotion, a very big obstacle came from the parents' lack of understanding of reading.
"At that time, I wanted to organize first-grade parents to buy an extracurricular book for their children for less than 10 yuan. The parents didn't understand and didn't want to. They thought that it would be good for their children to study the school textbook well and get a high score in the test. Extracurricular books are a waste of time and money." Wang Yijuan told reporters about the scene of trying to teach children to read in 2010.
In desperation, Wang Yijuan had to learn to register an account on the book e-commerce platform and figure out how to buy books.
At that time, there were 32 students in the class, and she spent a few hundred yuan to buy a copy for each student.
In this way, Wang Yijuan asked the children to recite every morning. Every Friday, she would arrange for the children to take home the nursery rhymes learned this week to parents and mothers, and let the parents sign, and the students who completed it would get a small gift.
This lasted for two months, and Wang Yijuan organized a parent meeting.
At the meeting, the children showed the children's songs they learned in small groups, and some children shared stories with their parents.
“Parents were very happy when they heard it. I took the opportunity to take the parents to read the "Reading Manual" to popularize the importance of reading. Then, I mobilized parents to buy books for their children, and each child bought a book. "Drifting" to other students to read, so that each child can see 30 books for only one book. The parents agreed."
Later, the school's book resources became more and more abundant, and parents no longer let parents buy books.
But Wang Yijuan and Wang Shuanling still encourage the children in the class to have their own small bookcases.
Wang Shuanling also won the approval of parents by holding parent meetings.
However, the task of changing parents' concepts and awakening parents' consciousness is still very difficult.
Zhang Min told reporters that the children who are staying at the village elementary school are in various situations, some are divorced parents, and some are left-behind children.
When doing reading, I feel that it is not as smooth as before, but the school and teachers are still doing their best to drive and lead parents through various platforms and channels.
The popularization of electronic equipment is also a headache for Zhang Min and the school teachers.
Now rural children can also easily access electronic devices, and their attention is easily distracted. “We are actually using books and electronic products to'grab' children. It is very difficult to'grab'.” Zhang Min believes that if we can From the first grade, the children will be infiltrated with books to let them feel the beauty of the books. After the third and fourth grades, the children will basically fall in love with reading and form the habit of independent reading, and they will not be easily biased.
In addition, Sanlitun Elementary School is facing a more severe predicament.
Due to the serious lag of school hardware, the newly built community schools in the surrounding area have a great impact on the source of students in the school.
At present, the number of students in Sanlitun Elementary School has dropped to less than 200, and the proportion of left-behind children and children from problem families has increased significantly... These have become the biggest obstacles for teachers to promote reading.
"After the hardest time in 2009, the difficulties today are nothing." Faced with the real dilemma, Zhang Min said frankly, "No matter what tomorrow is going on, we will steadfastly do today's things and face it. The child has a clear conscience. Even if there is only one child, you must do your best and treat him with all your heart."