Putting books in the hands of children
On a hot, dry February day, in a heat that would normally make the most attentive student lethargic, a Grade 4 class is rapt. Seated cross-legged on the floor, their mouths agape, eyes bright and never wavering, they focus intently on the woman turning the pages of ‘Jack’s Tractor’ by Thomas Taylor. Throughout the story, they repeat sounds and words back at…
New Year reading resolutions
Do you make resolutions at the beginning of each new year? Many people’s resolutions involve giving up something they enjoy to improve their lives. But that’s where reading resolutions are different – they are simply about doing more of what you enjoy! Try our suggestions below to make reading and stories a part of your family’s everyday life! And download our Story Power Pacts for you and…
Which stories should we read and retell to our children?
Stories travel – by word of mouth and in writing. Stories for children have been adapted over time from adult stories, often by translators, who have been responsible for crafting and shaping stories to suit their audiences across time and space. Think of Aesop’s Fables, told by Aesop, a slave and storyteller in Ancient Greece in the 5th century BC. Aesop’s Fables moved across continents for centuries,…
15 important benefits of sharing stories with children
When did you last share a story? Was it this morning, when you told a neighbour about what happened yesterday in the check-out queue at the supermarket? Was it yesterday, when your daughter brought home a history project about the first democratic election in South Africa and asked you what you did on that day? Was it last weekend, when you and your friends…
Sharing the joy of reading at Nal’ibali training workshops
One could have easily mistaken the adult reading workshop for a pre-school class as grown men and women jumped up and down, sang and performed theatrics – all in the name of promoting literacy.
The Nal’ibali regional training workshop hit the Grahamstown area at the weekend as part of a national drive to get children and adults reading for enjoyment in a bid to inspire…
A simple reading plan shows the way
Recently I visited Pratham, a large non-profit organisation that promotes reading across India. I was intrigued by their claim that they could get young children to learn to read within six weeks and that they could help those lagging behind to catch up.
If we could do the same, I thought, we could begin to overcome one of the biggest challenges to education in South Africa –…
An alternative approach to literacy learning
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 order and printed on worksheets.
All well and good, but where…
The gift of giving… books & stationery
Nal’ibali is about creating conditions that support learning. Children have to experience reading in the same way that adults do. They have to be able to choose books they like, read in the languages they want to read in, write what they like and find comfortable spaces to read in and feel nurtured. In reading club spaces, children have to feel the excitement we…
The retelling of the classics
In the May issue of Fairlady we featured a great article entitled ‘Good books bad feelings’ that posed the question whether you should read scary or sad books to your children. Now we take the question a bit further. Should children’s books also have a distinct African flavour?
What if Snow White was living with seven dwarfs somewhere in the Lesotho mountains and what if Rapunzel…
Great stories to help our country grow
One of my favourite storybook characters as a child was Mrs Tiggywinkle from The Tale of Mrs Tiggywinkle by Beatrix Potter. She was a hedgehog who miraculously reinvented herself daily – without ever compromising her true identity – into an industrious entrepreneur who ran a laundry service! There she was bustling across the rolling green hills of the English countryside, a world that for me…