Four years ago a third of the children arriving in grade four could not read a grade four textbook, which meant their teachers in every subject were teaching children who could not read the question.
Three changes were made and they are unglamorous. A reading period every day in grades one to three, protected in the timetable. Every child heard reading aloud by an adult at least twice a week, which costs about an hour per class per week and is the whole expense of the programme. And a book going home every night in a plastic wallet.
The wallet is the part worth describing, because it is the reason the programme survived. In the first year books went home in bags, came back wet, and families began refusing to take them because they expected to be charged. The school bought three hundred wallets, told every family that a ruined book would simply be replaced, and borrowing doubled in a term.
Where we are now. The reading check at the start of grade four last year found four children below the level rather than a third of the class. The four went to the support room and three have left it.
What we did not do is buy anything expensive, hire anybody, or run a competition. We tried a reading chart on the wall in the first year and took it down, because the slowest readers stopped borrowing.
