Reading CODE

Reading CODE is a comprehensive readership initiative that works with local teachers, librarians, writers, and publishers to support and sustain the development of literacy learning in K-12 schools. Reading CODE draws on CODE’s fifty years experience supporting local children’s book production in Africa and Latin America. It adds best practices in teaching reading, writing, and critical thinking, along with a proven model of successful collaboration with in-country partners, to ensure long-term sustainability of our impact.

• Good books brought to life by excellent teachers help children understand and thrive in the world around them  - That’s the idea behind Reading CODE.

The benefits of literacy are well known. As children, good readers are seekers of knowledge and flexible thinkers. As adults, good readers are life-long learners, more productive workers, and more independent and engaged citizens with healthier families, living in more peaceful communities.
Less often recognized, though, are two key elements essential to successfully developing and sustaining literacy:

• Interesting books, relevant to the readers, and written in languages the readers understand
• Meaningful engagement with these books through high quality teaching.

Because literacy is as much a life habit as a skill, Reading CODE helps produce good books that young people will want to read. Because the quality of teaching is critical, Reading CODE promotes a comprehensive system that trains teachers to engage students in reading and writing, and in developing their thinking and communication abilities.
To make sure literacy initiatives take root and yield results over the long term, Reading CODE joins these two elements with a third: effective partnerships that build the capacity of national partners so that they can continue to provide engaging books to children, and offer high-quality training for teachers. During our fifty year history, CODE has created a dozen such partnerships in countries around Africa and the Caribbean, and new affiliations are continually forming.

• Reading CODE Teachers

Teachers who are trained in Reading CODE programs learn ways to develop:

• concepts about print and word recognition for beginning reading
• vocabulary and other language skills
• reading fluency
• comprehension, skills of inquiry and independent thinking
• written expression
• study skills
• ability and confidence for participating in discussions and debates
• a habit and love of reading

The teaching methodologies promoted by Reading CODE draw from evidence-based best practices in child-centered learning and aim to make the student an active participant in his or her own learning journey. Master teachers reinforce the methodologies by adapting them to local circumstances.

The quality of teaching and training in the Reading CODE programs is maintained through the provision of clearly written instructional guides both for teachers and trainers. Standards and rubrics set clear quality targets for teachers, trainers, and project managers. Careful plans are developed for recruiting, training, monitoring, and evaluating teachers in each project.

The most qualified teachers are given further preparation to become trainers of other teachers, while working with carefully structured materials and observing the project’s standards. Project plans include disseminating the contents of the project to local teacher training agencies and education ministries so that education officials, and other local leaders, are motivated to sustain efforts to ensure long-lasting results.

• Reading CODE BOOKS

To learn to read, and then read to learn,children need a rich variety of intriguing, stimulating, culturally relevant stories, informational texts, and plays and poems that are written in a language they understand,
and that teachers can use with a range of teaching strategies.

Reading CODE’s books inspire reading with fluency and comprehension because they contain familiar elements that reflect children’s own experiences.

Relevant materials written in local languages at appropriate reading levels enable young learners to understand more about themselves and the world around them.

The books distributed with the support of Reading CODE are locally produced wherever possible; and to ensure an adequate supply of books for young readers, are supplemented by carefully chosen books imported from regional partners.

• Development of Writers

CODE and its partners enlist the support of experienced writers, illustrators, and editors who volunteer to conduct workshops and to mentor local authors and artists on the production of appropriate materials for children. This results in books that reflect the realities and possibilities of children’s own lives and the values of their cultures.

• Support to Publishing

CODE supports professional skill development in the editing, design and marketing of books through workshops, mentoring and publishing partnerships.

A vibrant publishing industry needs readers.Therefore, CODE helps create market demand by supporting the purchase of suitable, appealing books and distributing them to schools. Such support has made publishing of children’s reading materials viable in many countries.

A special contribution of CODE’s projects is to provide reading materials in languages where such materials are scarce.