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Help Children in Malaysia Learn to Read

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Help Children in Malaysia Learn to Read

Help Children in Malaysia Learn to Read

Help Children in Malaysia Learn to Read

Help Children in Malaysia Learn to Read

Help Children in Malaysia Learn to Read

Rachel Lim
Rachel Lim
Rachel Lim
Rachel Lim
1 Campaign |
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
$1,488 USD 36 backers
20% of $7,323 Flexible Goal Flexible Goal
Choose your Perk

One 'Pat & Friends' Post-card

$5 USD
Est. Shipping
September 2016
0 out of 300 of claimed

One Set Character Postcards

$10 USD
Est. Shipping
September 2016
3 out of 50 of claimed

One Set Postcards & Stickers

$25 USD
Est. Shipping
September 2016
4 out of 50 of claimed

Two Sets Postcards & Stickers

$50 USD
Est. Shipping
September 2016
3 out of 50 of claimed

1 x MY Readers Literacy Kit

$100 USD
Est. Shipping
December 2016
0 out of 20 of claimed

5 x MY Readers Literacy Kit

$500 USD
Est. Shipping
December 2016
0 out of 5 of claimed

Sponsor A School

$1,000 USD
Est. Shipping
February 2017
0 out of 2 of claimed

Ahmad* is 15 years old.

 

He gets into trouble a lot - playing truant, smoking in the toilets, fighting. In class, he acts out and disrupts lessons. He does not do any of the tasks or read along with the rest of the class. He has no dreams for his future, no sense of hope for a better life.

By the time Ahmad is 17, he is likely to drop out of school, greatly reducing his chances of ever getting himself or his family out of the poverty cycle.


BUT the truth is it all began with one key problem: Ahmad cannot read.

 

Growing up, he never had books in his home. His parents couldn’t read to him as a young child. Because of his poor background and because his parents were also illiterate, he never got to go through the early phase of learning to read that so many of us take for granted.

 

 

Hi there! We are a group of teachers who have worked and are working in underserved communities around Malaysia.

 

Ahmad is just one of many, many students we teach who are illiterate. We wanted to do something to help our students like Ahmad. The idea is simple - since illiteracy is a huge obstacle in these children ever getting an education, we wanted to make sure every child in a classroom is able to read.

 

 

We started small, pulling together the community and raising funds to set up reading programmes. When we found that existing materials were very expensive, not effective and unrelatable for Malaysian students, we took things into our own hands, researched and built our own programme, MY Readers, as a non-profit initiative.

 

 

To our delight, it worked! 13 year-old students who were reading at a Pre-Kindergarten level caught up and started reading texts on par with their age*. We found out that not only was this big problem solvable, but also that a problem which would have affected a child for the rest of his or her life could be solved within just 6 months of an effective, targeted reading programme!

 

*based on a Lexile-based diagnostic.

 


Now we have a greater vision. There are so many more students who are going through school feeling lost and inferior, whose lives would be completely changed if someone would just sit with them and give them the keys to reading. We have gotten requests for help from many schools and community homes across the country, and even for communities in Thailand, Myanmar and Singapore.
 


But in order to reach them, we need your help.

 

We’d like to package our programme into a comprehensive book set to share with kids who need it across the region. Part of this project is the creation of a local, South-East Asian flavoured book series, so that our children can finally read English books with references they can relate to and characters like themselves. More than just learning to read, the books will build for these children a sense of identity, and values like grit, confidence and self-reliance.

 

Meet Sara and her friend Pat, the Tapir. This is a sample of what our storybooks will look like, as Sara, Pat and their group of friends go on amazing adventures together!

 

 

Credit: Charis Loke Illustration

 

The funds will be used to pay professional illustrators to package three sets of books - Set A: Decodables, Set B: Fluency Practice and Set C: Comprehension Practice - a total of 50 storybooks that we wrote into an appealing, engaging learning experience for children. It will also go towards printing the first 500 literacy toolkits to set up literacy programs in areas where children struggle to read and help us stay running to conduct training and workshops for these communities. It is our hope that sales of the toolkit will eventually be able to support our programmes in needy schools where children are unable to afford tuition or resources. 

 

 

Help us help children in Malaysia learn to read. We can’t do this without you!

Love,

The MY Readers team.

Visit the MY Readers website here!

 

Questions? Reach out to Rachel at rachel@myreaders.org.my or on WhatsApp at +6593898346. 

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