The Reading Project: Bookworms

The Cause

Reading is a fundamental building block of education and a skill that can open doors to new worlds and opportunities. But for children in foster homes and orphanages in Hungary, the path to education can be even more challenging. Their circumstances may limit their access to books, resources and support, making it difficult for them to develop a love of reading and becoming functional members of society. How great would it be to have a digital platform that would actually motivate these children to read and develop themselves?

The Project

When my friend from Rotary Taban approached me with the project I was a little bit hesitant, since the main goal was to build an online platform that could accommodate a complete digital library, reading and quizzing interface, point system and an exchange functionality for rewards. Of course, everything automated as much as possible, so the costs of running the project can stay low.

For the last year, I and many other volunteers have been working hard to develop a simple and easy-to-use system that is finally ready to be launched. It’s called Betűfalók (Bookworms in English) and is available here.

How does it work?

After we registered the children for the program, they need to start with a reading comprehension test. Based on this test they will be assigned to a reading group that contains a library of books that are suitable for their reading level. We want to provide children with books that are entertaining, fun and a little challenging maybe. Our goal is not to test them, but rather to give them stories and lessons they actually enjoy. Reading consistently (no matter how small) is far more important than reading hard-to-understand “heavy” books in developing their reading habit.

After they have been assigned to a group, children can choose any book from the online library. As they read each chapter, they can earn points based on their progress and performance. There’s also a quiz at the end of each chapter, which can earn them additional points if they answer the questions correctly. 

As they read more and more books they unlock more and more rewards with their points. If they decide to exchange their points with a selected reward all they need to do is choose the reward in their profile and we ship it to them.

Here is a little video how reading works in action:

Since we launched the project more than 50 children have joined to start reading and gathering points online. Of course, the platform is far from perfect but we are working hard to implement each feedback we get from children and caregivers so we can offer the best reading and education solutions for children in need.

Education is one of the most important investments these children can make in their future, and we’re honoured to play a small part in helping them to reach their full potential.

Would you like to be involved?

As with many volunteering projects, there is a lot to do, especially when it comes to maintaining a full online library.

If you feel inspired and would love to help us, please reach out here: I’d love to help!

We mainly need support with these things:

• Developing quizzes for the books
• Uploading books, quizzes and other assets to the platform
• Further improving our service both on the technical and educational side

Thank you for reading!

Peter