Personal Reflections – 25 March
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | I feel nervous as this is the first time I am doing this reading session and I kept thinking of “what should I do if this happens”. I felt quite lost as I did not prepare myself should anything go wrong. | I was glad when I found out that Kai Qing’s command of English was good for her age and she was able to read books that had difficulty. However, I felt quite helpless when she only answers my questions with a “yes” or a “no”. I could not think of anything to get her to speak up and felt quite sad. | I was disappointed in myself as I came unprepared for what happened just now. The session, in a certain sense, was wasted as we did not get to converse much and she was also shy to read out loud to me. However, now that I got to know her better, I will be able to prepare and think of something that will make her speak up |
| With fellow students | | It was quite fun as we were able to be together and we could strike up conversations since some of the kids knew each other. We wanted to appear more like friends to the kids instead of appearing like a mentor. We could also clarify some questions with each other and helped each other facilitate the program | When we got together after the program, we were able to point out mistakes that we made and correct each other so that we would be able to prevent these mistakes. We also talked about the kids and how we felt. We realized how fun this SL project could get and we were very happy that we took this project up |
Personal Reflections – 31 March
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | I was calm and composed this week as I have already experienced what it would be like reading to a child. However, I was afraid that I would not get Kai Qing to speak up again. If she does not, it would be another session gone down the drain. | As expected, Kai Qing did not really ask many questions and was shy when I asked her to read to me. In the end, I still had to read to her and prompt her to ask me questions. I felt sad as we didn’t achieve anything this session | After I talked to Kai Qing’s mum, I did not feel as bad when I found out that Kai Qing does not usually speak up to people that she does not know well. I guess I have to strike up more conversations with her the next session as I am still like a stranger to her. |
Personal Reflections – 8 April
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | I did not feel as nervous as before and I was happy that I could temporarily escape from homework and cca and at the same time do something for the community by helping kids of single mums to pick up reading and improve on their studies | I was very happy that Kai Qing spoke up today and actually asked me questions. She showed great interest in the Earth and it was good when I was able to use what I learnt in Sec 1 to explain to her some technical terms like “tectonic plates”. It was a fun session as she made many funny remarks and shared her interests with me. | After this session, I could safely tell her mum that Kai Qing has shown a great improvement in her level of confidence and her speech and development skills and I felt a sense of accomplishment when her mum thanked me. |
| With fellow students | | We were glad that we had the sessions together as we could help each other in difficult situations. One instance was when Jason refused to read to Wei Jie. However after much persuasion from us, he finally agreed to read to Wei Jie and the session could continue smoothly | I was actually quite disappointed with my group members as they were not able to get their kids to read to them. Instead, both of them were doing silent reading and there was no way to see if the kids were actually benefitting from our program. I had to stop them halfway and tell them what to do before they continued with their sessions |
Personal Reflections – 15 April
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | I am scared that the methods I am going to use to make Kai Qing speak up later will not work. Even though it is a researched method, it might not work for every kid. But nonetheless it is better than not having a plan, so I will try to be flexible later | She started to ask certain words that she does not understand. This is good as she is now showing interest to improve. After reading the book we were interacting and I am glad that she actually shared with me that she wants to be an author or an artist. I was glad that sharing with her what I wanted to be when I grow up made her speak up. | I felt a great sense of relieve that the Kai Qing I was reading to is different from the Kai Qing I met on day one. She is not extremely shy anymore and she made much more eye contact with me. I believe that she has the drive to improve on her own now. |
Personal Reflections – 28 April
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | I am going to start on the flashcard games today with Kai Qing. I am looking forward to this as it is a break from all the reading, which is quite dry. Of course much more preparation is needed for this program since the words are of a certain difficulty. I expect Kai Qing to only recognize a few of the words I wrote down | As expected, she did not recognize many of the words. I was glad that I came well prepared and I could help her, at the very least, learn some words. It was quite a fun session today as I felt more interaction between us and I felt more natural when I cracked some jokes with her. It was also good to see her respond, showing that she is engaged and enjoys the session. | When I was thinking through the words I was teaching Kai Qing, I felt ashamed of myself because I did not know those words when I was at her age. Even though she was from a single-parent family and has less time than me, her passion for reading exceeds mine when I was young. I regretted it as I realized how much time I had wasted in the past but was glad that I am finally putting my time to good use. |
Personal Reflections – 6 May
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | I was worried because today’s session is going to be 1.5 hours and I am not sure what to do since we have only done 1 hour sessions so far. If I am unable to think of anything to do then I would be wasting 30 minutes. I just hope that we can make full use of the session later | I was even more worried as we finished the flashcard games earlier than I expected. Luckily, she managed to get hold of one of the “Tangshan Tigers” book. I recommended this adventure/mystery book to her a few weeks ago and she liked it very much. Since it was an adventure/mystery book, we were able to start on something called “Create your own story”. We read the blurb at the back of the book and from there on we assumed the role of the author and create our own stories. Overall it was an enjoyable session | I was very relieved that we managed to turn the session into a meaningful one. I was also very happy as Kai Qing was able to remember most of the words and their meanings. I hope that she will be able to remember all of the words in the next session |
Personal Reflections – 13 May
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | Before the service activity I was briefing all the volunteers. I was glad they were very participative in the project. After the briefing ended, I assigned each of them to my friends and we brought them on a “tour” of what we usually do during a reading session. I was quite nervous as I was afraid that I would screw up later during the reading session with Kai Qing | I did not do a good job as I forgot some things like marking down the words that Kai Qing did not recognize. I also forgot to ask Kai Qing discuss her opinions on the books that she read for the weekend. However I was quite happy that the volunteer that was assigned to me was able to read fluently to Kai Qing when I requested her to do so. | I was very glad that all the volunteers were very enthusiastic and they were very sociable. However I was quite disappointed in myself for performing quite badly today. I must learn from today’s lesson and be prepared for the media event on 7 July |
Personal Reflections – 20 May
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | I am quite anxious as I forgot to bring the stack of newly made flashcards and what made it worse was that we are going to have 2 sessions today. However I realized that I can use this opportunity to give Kai Qing spelling. I predict that Kai Qing will not be able to spell half of the words as I obtained the words from a list of vocabulary words for Primary 6 students. | I wasn’t surprised when Kai Qing could not spell most of the words. However it was surprising that she was able to form sentences with words like “abundant” after I explained the meaning to her. After the flashcards, we read “Geronimo Stilton and the Mysterious Cheese Thief” together and we had a fun time. | |
Personal Reflections – 30 May
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | I am quite anxious as I forgot to bring the stack of newly made flashcards and what made it worse was that we are going to have 2 sessions today. However I realized that I can use this opportunity to give Kai Qing spelling. I predict that Kai Qing will not be able to spell half of the words as I obtained the words from a list of vocabulary words for Primary 6 students. | I wasn’t surprised when Kai Qing could not spell most of the words. However it was surprising that she was able to form sentences with words like “abundant” after I explained the meaning to her. After the flashcards, we read “Geronimo Stilton and the Mysterious Cheese Thief” together and we had a fun time. | |
Personal Reflections – 3 June
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | | It was a very engaging and fun session. This is the reason why I always advice the child to choose an informative book. Instead of reading a whole book with a storyline, which should be done at home, they should read something that can be broken down very easily. Also, when they choose an informative book, our knowledge can be put into good use and we can help them benefit even more | It is this kind of sessions that fuel my passion to continue with my project. However there are challenges that we must overcome before we can make each session as enjoyable as this. Fret not as I will work towards this ultimate goal. |
Personal Reflections – 10 June
| | Before Service Activity | During Service Activity | After Service Activity |
| Alone | | | The reading session has finally come to a closed chapter. As much as I’m sad, I am happy that I have made a difference in someone’s life. Like what Mother Teresa once said: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one”. Likewise, even though the scale of the impact of our project is not huge, I believe that the lives of these children and mums have changed for the better. |
