Become a reading mentor

The world of books, stories, documentaries and fairy tales is fascinating. Especially little people are enthusiastic and can’t get enough of stories that stimulate their imagination and inspire them.

Reading something to children is itself great fun, because you have the opportunity to let yourself fall completely into the story and to emphasize it wonderfully, embellish it, and still talk about individual passages afterwards. Every mother and father knows that. But, unfortunately, every parent knows how much time is often needed to read to children with interest and concentration. One is sometimes only glad if the aunt, the grandfather or sometimes the big sister takes over this part.

The kindergartens and preschools also know this situation. For them there is a special solution with many good side effects: Reading mentors are invited to the kindergarten to read a story to the little ones, to ask them about the story afterwards or to initiate other activities. The children are so enthusiastic about reading that the idea of reading mentors has already caught on nationwide and is finding enthusiastic supporters in other areas as well.

About the activity

Reading is versatile and stimulating. Reading inspires and fires the imagination. People over 50 often finally find the time to read again. To dive into a story. To awaken the ability and interest of others in reading is the task of reading mentors, who are invited by schools or kindergartens to hold reading sessions with the children. A reading mentor is not directly an educator, but he cooperates with the pedagogical team and supports them in their work.

As a reading mentor, one is therefore an employee on a freelance basis for a short period of time. The reading that is read is often selected in advance by the pedagogical management of an institution and then “prepared” with the children in a playful way. It is often about topics that are of importance for the pedagogical plan. Sometimes the focus is on feelings, anger, reconciliation, sadness or happiness, and sometimes on topics such as nature, religion, rich and poor or family. For the children, the presence of a reading mentor is a special event and is perceived in a consistently positive way.

For whom is the activity as a reading mentor suitable??

Being a reading mentor is a positive experience for anyone over the age of 50. It does not require any special previous knowledge, because everyone should be able to read, and it takes place in a friendly environment. Dealing with children is a prerequisite for this job, although the pedagogical work is done by a mostly present team, you should already have done a small amount of previous educational work, for example, by raising a child yourself and thus bringing valuable experience for this task. Children forgive a lot, but fluent reading should be possible and also a clear, expressive voice would not be too much to ask for.

Since one experiences assistance in this activity by the personnel locally hardly situations will occur, where one is completely on one’s own left. Nevertheless, it is good if you do not have difficulties to appear and generally have a self-confident and stable personality. Because this is a good condition to promote the same in the child’s counterpart.

What is earned?

Earning opportunities in this activity are rather low. Possibly one should do completely without the money, because straight within the range of the school and education is driven for many years by the governments an austerity course. The assistance in the pedagogical area, the joy in dealing with children should be reward and motivation at the same time for this task.

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