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Super Writer of the Week
Readland Creative Writing ✍️ Masterclass
Khairaat Fagbemi
9 years old

The rainbow crow was excited to be picked to undertake the treacherous journey to the sun.
He knew it would be dangerous because the skies were full of hostile predators, risky paths, and tricky obstacles. However, he still decided to take up the offer.

The very next day, he set off on his adventure.
As he soared through the glistening clouds, he suddenly came face-to-face with a hungry eagle.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”
Feeling scared, he quickly flew past the eagle and didn’t look back.
When he thought he had escaped, he looked behind him only to find the eagle following close behind him.

Suddenly, he had an idea,
“Hey, you daft eagle, catch me if you can,” shouted the crow.
“With pleasure,” said the eagle.
The crow was more agile, so he was able to lose the eagle. He glided through the brightness and heat of the sun with a determined mind. In a few minutes, he had landed on top of the sun, burning his feet and losing half his feathers.

🎯TIP 5 – KIDS NEED CHORES

Parenting can be tasking at times. I wonder why my baby who is 4 likes to compete and outdo her elder ones. She is choleric and usually takes it out on her brother or the two girls form a team and leave their brother out of their games to go find a playmate.

Hmmm… So as a mother, I started devising tasks, must-do chores etc for them.

For example, I don’t use the washing machine to wash their socks, the three of them do that.  My son packs the dried clothes on the line during the weekend, the girls spread it. They all fill up their bottles together for school the next day. Each of them sorts out their clothes. They all lay their beds and clean up their room. My 4-year-old daughter must dust the table. My son can lay his bed perfectly like a pro. He has a perfectionist nature so his approach to things makes him quite finicky about certain things like his bed. His handwriting is super Nelson.

🎯TIP 6 – LIMIT TV
The rule is NO TV during the week.

I don’t allow too much TV and I am not a fan of TV, but a child that wants to watch during the weekend must show me the book, he/she has read for the week no matter how tiny he/she is. I am very firm about that rule.

We usually tell them that ‘Children with big TVs will watch children with a big vision on television.’

🎯TIP 7- INSPIRE AND DEVELOP THEIR
CREATIVITY
My elder daughter is very creative, from
playing the piano to drawing, painting,
making her purses with Ankara. To
inspire creativity in our children we allow
them to use A4 paper to make all the
different objects with their Art & Craft
books. They usually soil their clothes with watercolours. When I scream that they are wasting paper, my husband simply says let them be, I will buy more when they finish it”.

Today our children are grown. Our
daughter @mojoyinsplendid has won over six awards both locally and internationally.

Our son @superbrainboy has won over four awards.

And Mofe @adeshinamofe the last daughter has been
Internationally recognised for her artwork by the Sade Magazine London. She has been featured in a movie that has won five international awards. She is also a co-anchor of a Food TV show.

Thank you for reading the
tips. We pray this motivates you to raise
leaders of character and competence
indeed.

#readlandreadingadventure

Guest post from Temiloluwa Francis-Adeshina, Lead Learning Office at READLAND.
 
To all parents, I salute you!!! A big well done to you all on this parenting journey.
When the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable. God has a purpose for your child to fulfil even in his or her childhood. To live a purpose-driven life, getting on the right path early is very essential. Help your child answer the call early to be like Samuel or David in this generation.

🎯TIP 1 – CONNECTION TO GOD
First of all, I would like to state that raising and training children is not a day’s job. Neither is it a per-time duty.
We are in dangerous times and we have to protect our children. That’s why the greatest key and weapon I have raised my children with is a connection to the one who owns them, which is God. Their father & I are caretakers.
From childhood, we have taught them to pray by taking turns in the morning and before bed at night, they read the Bible & a psalm.
It has become a big-time habit. Dey can recite many Psalms now.

🎯TIP 2 – MAKE AFFIRMATIONS A LIFESTYLE.
Another weapon and habit we have consciously allowed to grow with them is Affirmations. Some years ago, we called it Confessions in our house. At that time, we insisted that the children repeat certain positive words while taking their baths.
I can boldly say that now they are older, they know bathing time is affirmation time and that whoever is bathing them adds other positive words for them. Now we call them affirmations.

🎯TIP 3 – MAINTAIN A BOND WITH YOUR CHILDREN.
One other thing that my husband and I intentionally do is to ensure we create a strong bond with our children.
I don’t trade with my being physically available as often as possible. Thank God I am an author, I do most of my work in the house but most times when I have outings on weekends, they go along with me. So I try to listen to them, I usually probe them with questions of my own and give comfort when needed, especially when they come back from school and haven’t had a great day.  I provide them comfort when they are hurt or upset.
One of the benefits derived from being available for my children is that we have built a stronger bond of trust. One day my first daughter came out of the room with a broken decoration and she said, “Mummy, I am sorry, I broke it some time ago but I hid it”

Here are a few tips to help ear­ly readers:

READ EVERY DAY
Find a time to read with your child every day. Even a brief dai­ly com­mit­ment can con­vey that read­ing is an impor­tant pri­or­i­ty for you.

MAKE A SPACE FOR READING
Cre­ate a com­fort­able, con­sis­tent place in your home where you can read togeth­er, enjoy books and chat about them. You might even make it a place where food and drink are wel­come — these sig­nal that read­ing can be a social activity.

MAKE READ­ING SILLY
Don’t be afraid to get sil­ly. Read­ing should be fun. Meet your child where he or she is, and don’t insist on ​“seri­ous” or ​“clas­sic” books. Sil­ly books, comics, ani­mé or oth­er art-dri­ven books are a good way to get many chil­dren inter­est­ed in read­ing. If pos­si­ble, act out or sing the words of sto­ries or find oth­er ways to enjoy books.

VIS­IT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY
Plan trips to the library. Get­ting your child a library card can get them excit­ed about books. Don’t wor­ry about read­ing every book — library trips should be fun. At first, these vis­its may sim­ply con­sist of spend­ing time wan­der­ing the rows of books and meet­ing librarians.

LIBRAR­I­ANS ARE RESOURCES
Ask librar­i­ans which books are appro­pri­ate for your child and which books kids are excit­ed about.

SEEK OUT ADAPTATIONS
Read books that are being adapt­ed into movies, and com­pare one type of media to the other.

ENCOUR­AGE WRITING
Encour­age your child to write thank-you notes, let­ters, jour­nal entries and sto­ries about their dai­ly life and expe­ri­ences. If your child is uncom­fort­able writ­ing, sug­gest that he or she cre­ate a com­ic strip.

BUILD LIT­ER­A­CY WITH OTH­ER ACTIVITIES
Enjoy puz­zles, mazes, cross­words and oth­er games, which enable your child to build lit­er­a­cy skills while hav­ing fun.

PART­NER WITH TEACHERS
Work with teach­ers to under­stand their approach to lit­er­a­cy and ask how you can help at home. Find ways to extend school lit­er­a­cy lessons when you’re home or out with your child.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE
Show your child that you love books, read­ing and writ­ing — and that you par­take in these activ­i­ties every day.

READLAND’S ROLE IN THE CAM­PAIGN FOR GRADE-LEV­EL READING
The Readland Foun­da­tion is the found­er of the Cam­paign for Read­ Aloud to children in underserved communities in Nigeria and Africa.
This is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort by more than 15 underserved communities and Schools to move the nee­dle on ear­ly lit­er­a­cy. The ini­tia­tive calls for an inte­grat­ed approach, which start­s at birth and ensures chil­dren devel­op the social, emo­tion­al and aca­d­e­m­ic skills need­ed to read by third grade. This grade lev­el is con­sid­ered a piv­ot point in edu­ca­tion, where chil­dren shift from learn­ing to read and instead begin read­ing to learn.

The early childhood literacy crisis in Nigeria has broad and lasting implications.

Elementary school students who struggle to read now may face many future obstacles, both in and out of the classroom.

Research shows that students who lack proficient reading skills by fourth grade are at a higher risk of struggling academically and even dropping out of school.

Low literacy rates are also linked to other lasting consequences affecting our communities, such as poverty and crime.

These are just a few of the reasons why we need to act now and create a future built on literacy.

Hence Readland Global created a simple model called the Read Aloud revolution.

1. The need is great and urgent.

Many students in Nigeria lack strong reading abilities, and the achievement gap increases further if a child lives in a low-income community.

Nearly 10 million low-income fourth graders currently read below grade level in Nigeria.
Only one in five low-income students read proficiently by fourth grade.

Students who struggle to read proficiently are also more likely to struggle in other subject areas like science and math, and they fall farther behind their peers at an increasing rate

2. Students who struggle to read are likely to face future challenges.

Reading is the foundation for all future learning, so young students who are unable to read proficiently may find themselves lacking other critical skills in their later years.

Children who do not read proficiently by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school.

According to a World Literacy Foundation Report from 2012, poor educational outcomes are linked to other negative consequences, such as poverty, unemployment, illness, and crime.

Seventy-five per cent of crimes in Nigeria are committed by high school dropouts.

3. Early literacy has significant implications for Nigerian society.

This isn’t just an issue for the individual children who lack the support they need to develop strong reading skills—this is an issue for all Nigerians. The early literacy crisis negatively impacts many other aspects of Nigerian society.

Every student that leaves school without graduating costs Nigerian society ₦260k in lost earnings, taxes, and productivity.

Economists predict a lack of 5 million secondary-educated workers by 2020 if current trends persist in Nigeria.

Nigeria could save an estimated ₦18.5 billion in annual crime costs, and the incidence of crime would significantly decrease if the graduation rate increased by just 5 percentage points.

If the number of secondary school dropouts was cut in half, Nigeria would save an annual ₦7.3 billion in Medicaid spending.