Welcome to the Reading Champions Training Course
We are so pleased that you could join us on this exciting journey of learning about reading. Your role as a Reading Champion is so important for the children in the school that you are supporting.
Reading for meaning is one of the most important skills a young person needs to build their future, and you are here to help them achieve that. What you are doing will make a life-long difference in their lives, and that is why we want to support you in every way possible to do your best.
As someone who is passionate about reading, we hope you find your role enjoyable and rewarding, and that the training here is useful to you. The focus of Reading Champions, especially in the Foundation Phase, is to develop home language reading skills. As a Reading Champion, you have an opportunity to provide a chance for young children to change a trajectory from failure to success.
Before you start, here are some tips and advice to ease your way.
The PDF version of the Reading Champions Manual (To download it, click here). Although this is an online course, we recommend that you have a notebook and a pen to write/draw or sketch your thoughts and ideas as well as to make summaries of important information.
If you have never studied online before, don’t worry – you can find your way quite easily. Just follow the prompts that tell you where to go and what button to click on and you will be a pro in no time.
You can finish in one sitting but you don’t have to. You can go in and out of this training course and your place will be saved automatically.
You work in your own time so you can go through the training course at your own pace. Don’t go too slowly though: set up some achievable goals such as completing one lesson a day and stick to the plan.
There are a few quizzes in this training course. You can redo the quizzes if you struggled the first time and want to improve your score.
There are instructional videos throughout the training course to make your learning that much more enjoyable.
The Reading Champion Journey
Below is an infographic that shows an overview of your journey. As you progress through your time at the school, come back to this to see where you are and which milestones are next.
Training outcomes
By the end of this training, you should be able to:
- Understand why reading for enjoyment is so important.
- Use the Reading Champions Manual to prepare and do activities.
- Understand and practice the five Reading activities.
- Understand the importance of accessing, managing and using resources.
- Plan and prepare for your activities during and after school.
- Understand the value of reading clubs.
- Understand how to set up and manage reading clubs.
- Understand how to engage the community to support reading initiatives.
One of the resources that you have at your disposal is the WhatsApp chatbot. By the end of this training you should be able to:
- Register on the WhatsApp chatbot.
- Be able to navigate the WhatsApp chatbot.
- Be able to complete and submit monitoring forms.
- Know how to access reading resources.
- Know how to access WhatsApp chatbot help and support.
- Be able to plan your week by following the planner as the Activity Guide.
Getting started with the WhatsApp Chatbot
- Save the number 060 015 0000 as a contact on your phone with the name “DBE RC ChatBot”.
- Once you have saved the contact in your phone, you can send a message to the contact on WhatsApp saying “Hi” and the chatbot will respond with these messages:
“Reading Champions Programme Main Menu”
“For Reading Champions Phase 4, we need to confirm your details again.”
“Here is a quick guide on How to navigate the Reading Champions chatbot”
The PDF guide will be sent to you and the chatbot will then ask:
“Ready to begin with registration?”
If you struggle with this registration or with the download, you can reach out to the help desk.
It’s time to start your first lesson and take your first step to become a Reading Champion.
Good luck and have fun!
Click on Lesson 1 below to continue.
- DBE Reading Champions Manual
- Reading Champion Planner
- CATC Brochure (Digital Version)
- Circular S30 of 2022 - Comprehension Across the Curriculum (CATC)
Reading Champion Chatbot Introduction:
Course Content
Course Includes
- 8 Lessons
- 35 Topics
- 5 Activities
- Course Certificate
