At PlusKids, children learn to read with pleasure, but also to develop their imagination, widen their vocabulary and practise expressing themselves.
Reading carries them into imaginary worlds, while theatre invites them to show their creativity and strengthen their self-confidence. The two go better together than apart: a text you read stays a personal experience, but one you perform has to be understood in full, because you cannot convincingly deliver a line you have not grasped.
The children invent stories and practise creative writing. It is the activity where the difference between knowing how to write and having something to write shows most clearly. We are less interested in flawless spelling and more in the story having a beginning, a problem and an ending — the rest is corrected along the way, whereas enthusiasm for writing, once lost, is hard to win back.
Theatre brings the part paper cannot give: the voice, the pause, the other person's gaze. For shy children a role is a good hiding place — it is not them speaking, it is the character — and from there, step by step, comes the courage to speak in their own name.
Experiences like these do not only help them grow wise and empathetic; they help them discover and express their own talents and passions.