Household Library Literacy Program
Increase Access And Improve Literacy For “Left-Behind” Children In Rural Village In China
The Household Small Hands-On Project Site aims to enhance literacy through household library services in rural communities by developing innovative, community-driven programs. These projects aim to serve local children based on their demographics, education levels, interests, and daily lives. Each project follows a one-year cycle. Projects cover a variety of themes, including but not limited to: Reading Promotion & Engagement such as book-sharing sessions, parent-child reading activities, reading mentorship programs, themed reading events, mobile book bags, book exchange markets, and emotional well-being stations; Interdisciplinary Activities Linked to Reading such as hands-on science projects, nature education, arts and crafts, vocational and health education, traditional culture workshops, and STEM activities; Cultural Heritage & Community Service such as folk culture exhibitions, local history preservation initiatives, and community storytelling archives.
Household Small Hands-On Project Site Program
To Elevate Project-Based Learning Literacy
EEF is funding Peking University Professor Zizhou Wang’s Household Reading Site (HRS) project, which aims to increase reading access and improve reading, science, technology, health, and cultural literacy among rural children by placing shelves of books and small project toolkits in selected rural families and establishing neighborhood reading centers in Chinese villages. The HRS project seeks to tackle an increasingly dire social problem that accompanies China’s rapid urbanization – the crisis of “left-behind” children. In search of better job opportunities, many rural adults migrate to cities and leave their children behind. There are about 70 million left-behind children in China, and they experience various effects of poverty, including poor quality of education. This program fosters literacy, creativity, and community engagement, empowering rural children with diverse learning opportunities while preserving local culture.
Household Reading Site Program
To Elevate Reading Literacy
Researchers from the Stanford Rural Education Action Program found that almost half of the left-behind children in the poorest central and western parts of China had dropped out of school by Grade 9. They cautioned that the high dropout rates may increase unemployment and widen inequality, which could lead to serious implications nationally and even internationally. One manifestation of disparities in education is rural children’s significant lack of access to suitable and adequate reading materials to develop their reading skills and interests. More than 70% of children in impoverished rural areas had access to only 10 or fewer extracurricular books a year, and nearly 20% had none. Recognizing this barrier in reading and literacy development, the HRS project aims to make reading materials easily accessible to rural children by creating neighborhood reading centers in selected households. HRS has identified a total of 15 villages to implement the intervention. At each village, 5 households are selected to receive a bookshelf and age-appropriate reading materials for children in that household and neighboring families. Selected families are trained on how to run the household-based library to offer convenient access to books and foster a culture of reading among neighborhood children.