Supporting literacy development on National Children’s day
TIPS TO ENHANCE CHILD LITERACY THIS CHILDREN’S DAY Saturday 03 November is National Children’s Day. Nal’ibali, a new national reading-for-enjoyment- initiative, provides these simple tips to easily turn any environment into one that encourages literacy learning, emotional bonding and fun. These can be used in the home or any other environment. Tips to creating a […]
Tell a story this Heritage day
On 24 September each year as South Africans, it’s time to stop and think about who we are as a nation, where we have come from and we are going. An important part of who we are is the languages we speak and the stories that have been told to us – and the ones […]
67 Ideas to spark a love of reading and writing among children
“I love playing and chatting with children… feeding and putting them to bed with a little story… I like relaxing at the house, reading quietly, taking in the sweet smell that comes from the pots, sitting around a table with the family and taking out my wife and children.” – Nelson Mandela The Nal’ibali reading […]
Using the power of stories to spark children’s potential
Illiteracy in South Africa is a grave problem and we’ve tended to approach it with the solemnity it deserves. Each year, we hold up the grim results of the national assessment of literacy in schools and design serious plans to improve them. We stack the curriculum primly with words and phonics, all in the correct […]
Narrowing the literacy gap: Making a case for the importance of early language and literacy development in South Africa
This learning brief summarises some of the most important findings of ‘Narrowing the Literacy Gap’, a recently published report coauthored by Dr Shelley O’Carroll and Rebecca Hickman. The report investigated opportunities to strengthen the literacy and language development of children between birth and six years old. In this learning brief Dr. O’Carroll explains that literacy […]
How can we accelerate reading development? Insights from India
Recently, a group from DGMT (Marianne MacRobert, Phillip Methula and David Harrison) visited literacy projects in India. They were intrigued by the claims of Pratham that children of about 5 to 6 years of age could learn to read within 6 weeks and that children lagging behind could catch up to their same-age peers. These […]
Wordworks report: Narrowing the literacy gap
Literacy and language development NGO, Wordworks, just completed an insightful report investigating opportunities to strengthen the literacy and language development of children between birth to six years old. According to Wordworks progress has been made in terms of the implementation of literacy strategies at school level, but until language and literacy development are placed at […]
