Friday, September 10, 2010

Well done to Souns!

More good news from South Africa. This note was received from the classroom teacher at the Chris Nissen Primary School (Grade R). She uses Souns to teach the children to read and write in both Xhosa and English.

"Well done to Souns!

We started to learn about Souns on 14 January 2010. Now they can be able to read and write, they write or build words on the floor using Souns and now they become to write words on the pieces of paper.

I wish this game can go to other Schools, because it help me. My learners now they gonna be good readers."

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Progress in Knysna, South Africa

In a country with eleven official languages, teaching literacy in South Africa can be a challenge. However, since all eleven languages use the latin alphabet, it is a perfect environment for learning with Souns. I was delighted to receive this story from Knysna this morning:

"We have had some hiccups in our schools recently while teachers were on strike, and before that it was an extra long holiday for the soccer World Cup, so there has not been much time at school for me to monitor my SOUNS classes. Well, today I went to Tembelitsha and Chris Nissen (both Xhosa classes) and was so amazed at the excellent progress that the learners have made in spite of the gaps in schooling. Where they were previously just managing words with repetitive syllables like "mama", "tata", "sisi", etc., they are now managing words like "funa", "muti", "wona" ...... both forming the words and deciphering the written words correctly, and each group had a child who could manage a longer word like " ihage" and "sesona" while I was there. So, it is going very well."

Thank you, Lesley, for this update!