Project: Let’s Read and Play
Organisation: The Asia Foundation
Mission
The Asia Foundation is a non-profit international development organisation and committed to improving lives, expanding opportunities and help societies flourish across a dynamic and developing in Asia.
Project
The Let’s Read and Play project promotes reading in preschool education to improve outcomes in the Thai education system. Reading is a fundamental skill that enables everyone to participate in society. Despite many improvements in the Thai education system, it appears that young children are far behind in terms of basic reading skills, which has a drastic effect on their ability to continue to complete their education. The objective of this project is to enhance the early reading skills of children in disadvantaged communities around Bangkok. The Asia Foundation works together with pre-school education centers to develop basic reading skills and to teach strong reading habits. Moreover, parents and families are involved in a number of ways, including weekly home activities, digital communication channels with teachers and reading events in the community. The project will result in a series of twenty engaging Thai storybooks that will be freely accessible through the Let's Read digital library.
Impact
The project is expected to have a direct impact on 1,600 young students at eight different schools and 7,000 additional family members through community-based activities. Sixty-four teachers and assistants will receive professional training in a method to teach children to read through play. With the addition of the books to the public digital library, another tens of thousands of readers will be influenced indirectly.