Today, our eyes are on rural children

How childhood cognition and reading shape a person is often something we spend a lifetime understanding and talking about. But we should also step out of our childhood and realize that the existing reading inside and outside the classroom does not take into account the reality of every child.
Rural children and urban children should share their knowledge of tall buildings and hillsides, the world they have learned in books, and the meaning of distant and nearby.

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Happy Children’s Day!
Have you ever thought that for some of the world’s children, this might be a luxurious blessing. Born in poverty or wealth, in peace or war, in the city or in the countryside, these prerequisites will greatly change a child’s Children’s Day picture.
“Your childhood, my childhood, seems to be the same”, no. In other words, what we hope is “all the same” is the balance of resource allocation, rather than the shielding of one childhood from another.
Amid the recent wave of criticism of primary school textbooks, a rural volunteer teacher said: “There is still a serious problem with the textbooks, which is that the textbooks are too urbanized.”
For example, he said, the math workbooks “are all based on high-rise buildings, super shopping malls, entertainment venues, amusement parks, and movie theaters. There are no simple hillsides, fields, villages, farm work, cattle herding, and firewood cutting. .”
On the one hand, the highly urbanized way of life is rooted in the hearts of rural children as a model of mainstream society, and on the other hand, the unrecognized rural daily life makes rural children “the one who most wants to escape from their hometown”.
How childhood cognition and reading shape a person is often something we spend a lifetime understanding and talking about. But we should also step out of our childhood and realize that the existing reading inside and outside the classroom does not take into account the reality of every child.
Rural children and urban children should share their knowledge of tall buildings and hillsides, the world they have learned in books, and the meaning of distant and nearby.
On this year’s World Reading Day, Beijing One-way Street Public Welfare Foundation released the “Investigation Report on Rural Children’s Extracurricular Reading”. On the occasion of Children’s Day, based on the current situation of the research report, the One-way Street Foundation launched the “Future Vision” rural children’s reading program.


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Our report found:

The report takes the 750,000 rural children covered by the “Children’s Companion Mother” project of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation as the research object, analyzes the current situation of rural children’s reading, provides insight into reading needs, and provides a strong basis for improving rural children’s reading ability.

01 Rural children basically get rid of the situation of “no books to read”

– The main channels for rural children to obtain extracurricular books include online book purchases (46.8%), bookstores (44.6%), school libraries (39.7%) and children’s companion homes (36.6%).

– 83.4% of rural children’s households have less than 20 books, but they can easily borrow books they want to read through school libraries and public library facilities.

02 Rural children read no more than 10 books in the past half year

– In the past six months, 40.6% of rural children read less than 5 books.

– 45.8% of urban children read more than 10 books in half a year, of which 19.9% ​​can read more than 31 books; only 24.3% of rural children read more than 10 books in half a year.

03 Books about art enlightenment and general humanities, they read very little

– Among all book types, the three categories with the lowest reading rate for rural children are art, music and art enlightenment, general knowledge of humanities, history and philosophy, and puzzle books, accounting for 9.2%, 12.4%, and 14.9%, respectively. The reading types show an uneven distribution. .

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“Smell of Rice”

04 When reading, 16.4% of rural children will be called to do housework

– 69.6% of rural children and 84.9% of urban children said that during reading, “the surroundings are relatively quiet, and they can calm down and read books”.

– Compared with urban children, the two factors of “being frequently called by family members to do housework” and “family members talking loudly while watching TV” have a greater impact on rural children, accounting for 16.4% and 21.2% respectively.

05 Only 3.7% of rural children are exposed to reading before the age of 3

– More than 85% of rural children are exposed to reading at the age of 3-9, while 84.1% of urban children are exposed to reading at the age of 0-6.

– Only 3.7% of rural children are exposed to reading before the age of 3, while 30.5% of urban children are exposed before the age of 3. There is a lot of room for improvement in the intervention of reading guidance for rural children before the age of 3.

06 Rural children choose their own books, and they read most of them by themselves

– More than 60% of rural children choose books independently, about 40% of rural children can get help from their mothers when choosing books, and only about 20% of rural children can get help from their fathers when choosing books.

– 46.8% and rural children usually read by themselves, only 22.2% of rural children usually read with their mothers, and only 10.1% of them are accompanied by their fathers.

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“Winter Holiday”

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We want to put into action:

The One Way Street Foundation launched the “Future Eyes” rural children’s reading program on June 1, 2022. The first phase of the plan will last for three years and will be launched in underdeveloped villages in the central and western regions between 2022 and 2025.

“Future Eyes” comes from the poet Bei Dao’s verse “That is five thousand years of hieroglyphs / That is the eyes of people in the future”, the English name is Read for the Future .

“Future” represents our vision and ambition to create this project, leading rural children into the future of knowledge and intelligence by leading them to read classics and good books. “Vision” represents reading and the broader and diverse perspectives that rural children have learned through reading. It also represents our earnest expectations for the future generation, helping them gain the ability and opportunity to participate in and build the future through reading.

The “Future Vision” plan hopes to select classic books through three years of hard work and practice, organize child companion mothers and reading companion volunteers, and provide systematic reading plans for rural children in remote areas. We hope that rural children can have a dialogue with classics as soon as possible, feel the joy of reading in the company, cultivate good reading habits and free emotional expression, and help them establish a better connection with the world.

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“Roadside Picnic”

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We have their support:

We will also invite writers, poets, artists, educators, etc. to become companion readers and continue to participate in the “Future Vision” program.

The first batch of “Future Eyes” celebrity companion readers

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North Island

poet

“That’s five thousand years of hieroglyphics, that’s the staring eyes of the people of the future.”

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Xu Zhiyuan

Writer, Founder of One Way Space

“Children, imagine that anything is possible.”

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Yao Chen

Actor, China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation child companion mother activist

“Reading is a beacon. It lights up the night, dispels fear, and leads us to the depths of our hearts.”

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Zhian

Renowned scholars and writers

“Many books have the most suitable age for reading, and reading late or early is more effective. Therefore, to deliver books suitable for children to read in time, for rural children, we need to work harder.”

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Xia Peng

Founder of Friendship Class

“Those glittering classics are beacons for children to explore the world and the future. No matter which land you step on, you always believe that good things will happen where there is light.”

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Zhang Lixian

Editor-in-Chief of “Reading Library”

“The fragrance of books drifts away, and youth is growing.”

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Wu Qi

Editor-in-chief of “Single Reading”, anchor of “The Screws Are Tightening”

“Our world begins with a small, vague and unrestrained wish from childhood and has grown up. Every generation in the future should enjoy such opportunities more fully and equally, no matter whether their starting point is in the city. It’s still rural.”

“Future Eyes” Rural Children’s Reading Program

Project sponsor

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Xu Nan

Founder of One-way Street Public Welfare Foundation

Initiator of Sailor Project, Janus Translation Grant Program

“There is no need to reiterate the importance of reading good books for children’s development, the key is whether we do our due diligence, especially for rural children with limited resources. Giving a book is easy, reading it with them is not Simple. The effort, no matter how much, is worth it.”

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Continue to pay attention to the “Future Vision” rural children’s reading plan

More Celebrity Companion Readers

Child companion mothers and companion reading volunteers are joining

Helping rural children to read

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