News & Articles

According to the US Census Bureau, minorities represent almost half of America’s population under the age of 5. This statistic portends a more ethnically diverse America, with new and growing populations playing more significant economic, social and political roles. Perhaps it’s no surprise that kindergarten and elementary school teachers today recognise the importance of teaching a curriculum that reflects this multicultural and multiracial world. Culturally responsive teaching means providing 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…

Reading with comprehension is a human right that doesn’t happen for most South Africans. Is this blanket statement really true or are we ignoring the fact that significant numbers of people are reading in a different form of language than is expected of them – particularly the younger generation criticised for writing CVs and matric exams in so-called txt-tese, SMS language or chat speak? Are…

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…

I wasn’t always a fan of reading.  I only did it because it pleased my aunt and because I had to do it for book reviews. But, even in Grades Six and Seven, when doing book reviews became frequent, my actual reading of them (books) didn’t. I would read the blurb of the book and the last 100 pages so that I could piece…