SCHOOLCHILDREN have been Skyping pupils on the other side of the world to improve their reading skills.

A group of youngsters at Wood Farm Primary School Skyped Adelaide Primary School in Bezuidenhoutville, South Africa as part of the Reading Recovery Read Aloud event.

The campaign, which runs worldwide, aims to increase awareness of children with reading difficulties to ensure they get help to make them confident readers.

Wood Farm has forged a partnership with Adelaide Primary over the past few years which has seen staff and students visit both schools.

And reading teacher Emily Coyle thought using Skype would add a different dimension to the learning of her Year 1 pupils.

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Ms Coyle said: “Skyping is a different way of keeping the link between our South African school and us alive.

“It is an opportunity for the group of children to share their reading in a different way rather than just reading to a teacher.

“They had never Skyped the school before and the whole session went really well.”

Pupil Jaden Sheldon-Battle[corr], six, said: “We did some reading and they did some reading. I really enjoyed it.

“It made me feel proud and happy because I was reading out loud and they were listening in another country.”

Ms Coyle had been working with four pupils, who are from Wood Farm over a 20-week period and said she was pleased with how quickly each child progressed.

She added: “By Skyping and one-to-one sessions we do in school, we hope that they will become more confident readers and be able to make progress in other areas of the curriculum. The Reading Recovery campaign was started because it was found that lots of children were leaving school without being able to read or write.

“It’s all about raising the awareness that of the importance of reading in the early years is vital and its nice to do something different.”

The Reading Recovering team has a mission to ensure that by 2025 every child is a confident reader by the time they reach 11.

Ms Coyle added: “My job is great. You can really see the progress every child makes and when the penny drops for one of them it is really good to see.

“We try to make sure the children are enjoying reading by choosing books that they will be interested in."

“It’s all about encouraging them to be independent and give them the fundamental skills to go on and be more confident when reading.”