Promote a culture of love for reading in our communities
If the fun little yay-or-nay poll on our Facebook page is an accurate representation, parents felt elated to see their children go off to school on the first day.
As expected, there were smiles and tears when the school year officially kicked off last Wednesday.
If the fun little yay-or-nay poll on our Facebook page is an accurate representation, parents felt elated to see their children go off to school on the first day.
Our journalists captured precious first moments of the new school year and, in some cases, asked the Grade 2s to share their advice for Grade 1s.
“Have fun,” one advised.
It’s similar to the sentiment of Lyndhurst resident, Edna Freinkel, who said, ‘learning must be a joy’, which this newspaper’s sister publication, the North Eastern Tribune reports is the vision of her registered trust, Readucate, that works mainly in schools and prisons. For her dedication to fighting illiteracy, Freinkel was honoured with the Continental Lifetime Achiever award recently.
Freinkel’s award and work stand out at a time in which the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016, released in December last year and which assesses reading comprehension, found that out of 50 countries in the study, South Africa was the lowest performing. This is according to the PIRLS Literacy 2016: South African Highlights Report on the University of Pretoria website.
According to the report, the study aimed to assess how well Grade 4s read and compare their reading literacy internationally and among the nine provinces for all 11 languages.
“Around 78 per cent of South African Grade 4 learners do not reach the international benchmarks and therefore do not have basic reading skills by the end of the Grade 4 school year, in contrast to only 4 per cent of learners internationally,” read, in part, the key findings section of the report.
It was further found that the children whose parents enjoyed reading ‘achieve higher scores’.
The study’s recommendations are extensive and, while we are not all educators, there is something we can do – and we don’t need a classroom for it: We can encourage reading habits among our children.
There is power in the encouragement from the Grade 2 who advised this year’s Grade 1s to ‘have fun’; in Freinkel’s words that ‘learning must be a joy’ and in the PIRLS finding that children whose parents enjoyed reading ‘achieve higher scores’. We stand to make a truly positive impact on our children’s education by promoting a culture of love for reading and learning in our communities.
If you’d like to share your thoughts or comments with the editor, you can email me at daniellap@caxton.co.za
