Code on the Children's Ward
A news feature about a teenager who started a coding club for children who stay in a hospital for a long time.
Tap any word to hear it · dotted words have a definition in the glossary
🎧 Listen
1Every Wednesday afternoon, sixteen-year-old Ori Rosen takes the bus to a hospital in Petah Tikva with a backpack full of laptops. He is not a , and he is not visiting a . He is going to teach.
2Two years ago, Ori spent three weeks in the same hospital after a serious operation on his back. "The worst part wasn't the pain," he remembers. "It was the . The days were , and I felt that the world was going on without me." To pass the time, he started learning to code on his father's old laptop. By the time he went home, he had built a simple game.
3Last year, Ori contacted the hospital's education department with an idea: a weekly coding club for children who stay in the hospital for a long time. The staff liked the idea, and a local technology company eight used laptops.
4The club is small, usually five or six children between the ages of nine and fifteen. Some sit in wheelchairs; others join from their beds. Ori starts each meeting with a short , like making a cat move across the screen, and then lets the children follow their own ideas. One girl built a quiz about her favorite singer. A boy who had been in the hospital for four months created a game in which a doctor chases .
5The nurses say that the children wait all week for Wednesday. "For one hour, they are not patients," says one nurse. "They are ."
6Ori plans to study computer science after his army service, but he wants the club to continue without him. He is already training two friends to take his place.
📘 Glossary
- patient - a person who is getting medical care
- relative - a member of your family
- boredom - the feeling of having nothing interesting to do
- endless - seeming to have no end
- donated - gave something to help, without payment
- challenge - a task that is difficult but interesting
- germs - tiny living things that can make you sick
- inventors - people who make up new things
Questions
Purpose and structure
1. Why does the writer say, "He is not a patient, and he is not visiting a relative"?Finding details
2. According to Ori, what was the worst part of his time in the hospital?Word meaning
3. In paragraph 2, "The days were endless" means that the days…Finding details
4. What did Ori do to pass the time in the hospital?Finding details
5. Who donated the laptops to the club?Finding details
6. How does Ori start each meeting of the club?Finding details
7. Give TWO things that children in the club have created.Making inferences
8. What does the nurse mean by "For one hour, they are not patients. They are inventors"?Making inferences
9. Why is Ori training two friends?
✍️ Writing task
Think of a way that teenagers in your town could help other people. Describe your idea and explain why it would make a difference.
80–100 words
0 words
Answer every question to get a score (0/9)