News & Articles

Nal’ibali, the nationwide reading-for-enjoyment campaign which aims to spark children’s potential through reading and storytelling, is supporting caregivers in kick-starting their children’s 2019 school year by giving away 20 mini-libraries fully stocked with story books in different South African languages.      Research shows that children who read for pleasure, do better across all school subjects, including Maths. However, to keep children reading, it’s helpful to understand what motivates them to read.  According to American researchers, Kathryn Edmunds and Kathryn Bauserman, the following factors influence children’s reading behaviours.    Children are more…

Athol Williams November is Picture Book Month and the power of picture books is evident in the numerous engagement options they offer a child. These multiple options offer a broadened approach to reading. I count five different ways in which picture books can be used by children, in effect, making a picture book, five books in one.  The first three ways relate to children reading…

Increasing pressure on the publishing industry, plus a shrinking reading culture, hasn’t changed the enormous lifelong benefit of reading to children from early childhood. With South Africa having eleven official languages, how do we ensure children across the country access these benefits in their mother tongue? By Jade Jacobsohn, Managing Director at Nal’ibali.  ————- According to UNESCO, “Illiteracy and poverty constitute a mutually reinforcing, vicious cycle…

[To listen to the winning stories, click here. ] Story Bosso is a multilingual storytelling contest designed to provide aspiring storytellers with an opportunity to showcase their talent and to promote storytelling in all official South African languages. It’s an initiative of South Africa’s national-reading-for-enjoyment campaign, Nal’ibali. The theme for this year’s talent search was ‘South African Heroes’.  By remembering and telling the stories of our heroes, the…

DGMT and Primedia have recently launched one of the country’s largest-ever national outdoor media campaigns, demonstrating the power of early childhood development to change the future of South Africa. The billboard campaign will showcase three large-scale initiatives to prevent nutritional stunting and promote early learning and reading –namely Grow Great, SmartStart and Nal’ibali. It comes at a time when South Africa is looking for greater…