6 - 2022 | Book Village

In the words of Nelson Mandela “Young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of oppression and raising the banners of freedom”. Youth Day is celebrated annually on the 16th of June as a testament to the power of the youth to advocate against oppression. On the 16th of June 1976, thousands of students protested in the streets of Soweto against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of education. Moreover, the protests were also about the Bantu Education system as a whole. The idea behind Bantu education was to create a population that was trained to perform manual labour and be involved in ‘menial work’. Students protested this too, opposing the overcrowded, underfunded and poor standards of education that students of colour were receiving from the Apartheid government. Tragically, clashes with police resulted in many protesters’ deaths, with statistics varying from 400 to over 1000 protesters (mainly children) dying. This was a devastating day in our country’s history but one that was also considered a turning point in the Anti-Apartheid regime. The actions of the Apartheid government in the June 16th protests were a contributing factor to the adoption of a more militant approach by Anti-Apartheid movements. The event also highlighted the atrocities of Apartheid to international communities, who would later introduce sanctions against the Apartheid Government. The ‘beginning of the end’ so to say.

This year marks 46 years since the Soweto uprising and whilst many strides have been taken to improve our educational system for young South Africans, there is still more to be done. According to Amnesty International, the modern-day South African educational system is characterised by “crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms and relatively poor educational outcomes”. The article also argued that a poor educational system “perpetuates inequality” and fails many children “with the poor hardest hit”. It is undoubtable that access to a quality education not only has positive impacts for a child but also for all of society. Some devastating statics noted that “three-quarters of children aged nine cannot read for meaning”. This issue in South Africa also seems to varied amongst provinces with statistics showing that reading without comprehension is “as high as 91% in Limpopo and 85% in the Eastern Cape. And of 100 learners that start school, 50-60 will make it to matric, 40-50 will pass matric, and only 14 will go to university”(Amnesty International, 2020).

At Book Village, we will not allow these statistics to persist and part of our mission is to help end the literacy crisis in South Africa. Our hope is that our digital app and library will allow for reading to become more accessible to all young South Africans and that this can help directly target some of the gaps in our educational sector.

This Youth Day, we continue to be inspired by the determination of the youth of 1976 in their quest to advocate for equal education for all. This tragic day is a reminder of where we have come from and our responsibility as a country to continue to advocate for the rights of children, particularly their educational rights.

The first time a child picks up a book, they’re unlikely to know how to open it properly, let alone be a fluent reader. This is because like with any skill, you must start with baby steps before you can start walking. But unlike many skills such as walking or speaking, the ability to read is not acquired naturally without instruction. Studies suggest that without quality instruction, a child who reads poorly in the early grades will continue to read poorly in the upper grades, and will require more and more instructional intervention in order to “catch up” (Juel, 1988).

We have spent the first half of the year teaching the necessary pre-reading skills to the Grade Rs and Grade 1s at Cosmo City Primary and they have been making great progress. If you’ve got a little one, it’s never too soon to start helping them to acquire these skills too.

Through the course of their reading development, a child will go through 4 reading stages:

Emergent reader (cannot read yet)
Beginner reader
Early reader
Fluent reader

Throughout these stages, there are skills that children develop in order to become fluent readers.

1. Interest and motivation to read

In order to learn how to read, children must have a desire to read. They must be motivated in order to develop new skills, which will help them grow as a reader.

A way to inspire interest and motivation in your children is to read to them everyday and allow them to choose the books.

2. Visual perception

This is our brains’ ability to process what we see and what our eyes have picked up.

When children learn to read, their visual perception needs to be accurate so that they can distinguish between foreground and background, and discriminate between colours, shapes, sizes and positions in space. This helps children to visualise and process words in the long term.

If your little one is having visual perception difficulties there are many activities that will help improve these skills.

3. Book and print awareness

Before learning to read, children will pick up books and enjoy the pictures without realising that the letters on the page can be deciphered to create meaning.

Children need to develop an understanding of how letters create words and these words can be put into sentences to create meaning.

Playing word games, pointing out words around children in their environment, modelling the correct way to handle books and using your finger to follow the text as you read a book to them are ways to improve their book and print awareness.

4. Narrative and listening skills

When listening to a story, a child is able to focus on what the story is about, use their imagination and develop expectations of how the story will end.

Through this process, they are able to develop their comprehension skills, vocabulary and memory. Good narrative skills allow a child to describe things and retell events. Both narrative and listening skills are essential for a child to learn how to read as they assist in improving vocabulary, predicting, understanding, concentration and memory.

5. Letter Knowledge

In order for children to read words, they need to understand that letters have names and sounds, and can be uppercase and lowercase.

Ways to help improve your child’s letter knowledge are to read alphabet books, teach them the letters in their name and make them aware of letters in their environment by looking at license plates on cars, recipe books, labels on groceries and other items.

6. Phonological and phonemic awareness

This is the ability to hear that words are made up of smaller sounds and these sounds can be manipulated. When a child hears a word like ‘pat’, they should be able to identify the different letters and their sounds – /p/ /a/ /t/. They should also be able to hear sound patterns such as rhyme and syllables.

Singing nursery rhymes, breaking down words into sounds, counting syllables, and changing the beginning sounds of words are some of the many activities that can help improve phonological and phonemic awareness.

7. Vocabulary

Lastly, knowing the names of things is an essential skill in order to learn how to read. The greater your child’s vocabulary, the easier it will be for them to learn how to read and enjoy reading.

When reading stories to your children they can hear the words and connect them with pictures in the storybook. This is a great way to improve their vocabulary.

Other ways you can improve vocabulary include having conversations with your children and explaining unfamiliar words to them, asking them to describe things such as their toys or food, reading stories everyday and playing word games.

Photo by Gautam Arora on Unsplash & WoodenEarth.com

Youth Day

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