reading

Great Girls Read Returns Results!

I love to read, and I think that love and skill is what carried me through my education and into a career. Reading opens doors (and worlds!) like almost no other skill can. That’s why we launched Great Girls Read, and why I’m so happy to report on its results in the 23/24 school year. Spoiler alert: the results were wonderful!

Girls Discover the Joy of Reading

Reading is fundamental to success in school, so our Girls’ Project offers special classes to make sure girls have the critical skill. We call these sessions Great Girls Read and the story of one 7th grader – Lafia K. – really illustrates the campaign’s power.

Reading Opens Doors for Girls

Mali Rising’s Girls’ Project is focused on helping girls get into school and succeed there. One key to success in school? Reading abilities! That’s where our Great Girls Read sessions come into play. Great Girls Read reading sessions are designed to help the girls improve their reading skills and find real pleasure in reading.

Great Girls Read Gives a Huge Lift

In Mali, all too often we find that students who diligently attend school still cannot read. Based on my own personal observations, I would estimate that around 80% of middle school students are not able to read a sentence correctly in French and 85% of elementary students are not able read aloud a simple sentence like “My school is pretty.”

Through the Girls’ Project’s Great Girls Read campaign, I am focused on changing this dynamic for our girls. I am particularly passionate about focusing on reading with our elementary school girls, because if they can learn reading young it will set them way ahead in middle school!

Volunteers' Hard Work On the Way to Mali

Our volunteers have been going absolutely full speed this spring to create tools and school supplies for our students in Mali. We were all geared up to send the results to Mali via shipping container, when our shipping partnership fell through. However, good deeds do not go unrewarded and last week we were able to sneak a good amount of donated and created supplies on to a shipping container now headed to our students!

Great Girls Read Makes Learning Fun...With Cake

To improve the reading skills of girls in the Girls Project, we organize reading sessions with the girls during our study meetings. These sessions give girls a chance to practice basic reading skills in a safe setting, using simple reading texts. But how does it really work?

Our Powerful Girls Apply Their Power to Reading!

Reading is the heart of knowledge, yet many children in Mali cannot read. In fact, many students fail school all together because, when you do not know how to read the lesson, you cannot learn the lesson nor understand its meaning. This is a problem we must address! As Mali’s new school year begins this month, I am helping our Girls’ Project girls improve their reading ability through our study sessions.