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!