"I Can Read" is on!

With 41 girls on school break for 3 months, we have to find activities to keep them busy. I challenged those who can read to read 25 books per month. Some of them that is quite a big goal, and they are slowly working to reach it, and improving their reading skills very much with challenging words in the books. For others they are great readers, and have already zoomed past the 25 book goal and are heading towards 50 books by Christmas! We are so blessed to have a library here filled with donated and bought books in English and Portuguese (but the girls read Portuguese, not English). We have about 500 books, including allot of good information and reference books, as well as story books, comic books, chapter books, and National Geographic magazines in Portuguese! And games and puzzles too:-)

Those who cannot read yet, are going through the reading program the dorm mothers, older girls, and me teaching them to read. And also we are doing a book activity where each week we will read a book and do an activity to go along with the book. Yesterday I read to them a silly book about a chicken. Afterwards I took them for a walk into the community near the center. We walked along the HOT sandy paths between the thorn bush 'fences' that line people's little yards. We were on the hunt to find the animals we saw in the book, and we had great success! They found chickens roaming around, adorable baby chicks, ducks and a few ducklings, and even pigeons. It was good for them to see what's behind the center too, since the little ones never really get to go walking around in the community here.

The girls are gaining a passion for books and reading, improving their reading skills, and getting anxious to see what the prize will be in the end for completing their goals.