Shining Star Reads (SSR) @ South West was first piloted in 2014 in Clementi void decks, by NUS students, with the funding support of South West CDC. 

Over the years, there were increasing provisions of reading intervention programmes to supplement governmental education curriculum. Reading intervention programmes are important as reading capability has been shown to be a major predictor of academic outcomes (Aikens & Barbarin, 2008). There is an increasing interest in the provision of free reading intervention for low socio-economic status (SES) families, and it is important because it is well-established that children from low SES families have poorer educational outcomes, including reading, and the gap between them and their peers from higher SES families continue to grow as the children progress through school (Hoff, 2013). 

At the time, most of the literacy programmes provided by the Family Service Centres (FSCs) in Singapore are centre-centric. A centre-centric programme based the reading activities in the agency and workers design the structure of the programme. Parents would bring the children over to the agency for the reading programme. 

Through coordinating and building the individual assets of a community, BLESS mobilised individuals in the community to deliver reading programme to children aged 4 to 9 years, in their locality. Children would congregate together at their void decks and volunteers from within their community would read to them. 

Up until 2020, SSR had expanded to reach 10 community reading groups, including at Marsiling ComLink. 

As the circuit breaker kicked in, all physical sessions were suspended. We thus attempted Zoom sessions, and adapted by developing a new integrated curriculum with "Chimp Champ Learns" educational toolkits mailed to the children's homes.

In 2025, BLESS focused on strengthening the programme by revamping the NLB kidsREAD curriculum. The enhanced curriculum was piloted in the fourth quarter of 2025 across two communities, both of which demonstrated very positive results in improving children’s reading skills and engagement.

Following the success of this pilot, BLESS will review the findings and extend the programme to more groups in 2026, enabling Shining Star to reach and benefit more children within the community.

BLESS engages residents living in the locality to implement the programme, in bid of promoting sustainable volunteerism.