Exciting things are happening in foundation phase literacy classes at a number of Grahamstown East primary schools.
Exciting things are happening in foundation phase literacy classes at a number of Grahamstown East primary schools.
The Molteno Literacy Project, being implemented under the auspices of GADRA Education, is operating in some 28 Grade 1 and 2 classrooms and is starting to make an impact on literacy levels.
A key factor in the success of this project has been the partnership and support of the Department of Education’s (DoE) district office.
The history of GADRA Education’s involvement goes back to 2007, when the organisation supported the efforts of Petunia Kleinbooi, who was working with pupils from St Mary’s Primary School.
They realised that laying a solid foundation in the early years was critical and, spurred on by the proven methodology of the Molteno Project’s Breakthrough to Literacy and Bridge to English programmes,
decided to revive these programmes in Grahamstown schools.
This programme works with the assumption that it is critical for children in Grade 1 to become functionally literate in their mother tongue before moving on to learning a second language.
It is also a programme that approaches literacy from the top down, starting with sentences rather than individual letters of the alphabet.
This requires a mind-shift for most teachers, but once they see the results, they are sold on the concept of reading for meaning at the earliest possible stage.
GADRA Education is committed to providing language teaching support to the Molteno schools from Grade 1 through to Grade 7 eventually. Although not the norm, they added a few Grade 1 classes in 2010, as they feel it is important that all the Grade 1 classes at one school follow the same methodology.
Kelly Long is the Literacy Project Facilitator for GADRA Education and the person that provides hands-on support and monitoring of the participating teachers in their classrooms.
This is a crucial element in ensuring the success of the project. Although the DoE are now making the materials available for teachers to order, an impetus was needed to start teachers off on the programme and to support its implementation.
GADRA Education provides initial and refresher training to teachers, together with classroom management support and ongoing evaluation.
Long says the key is to remain positive, and this seems to have paid off: “The dedication and commitment of the teachers has been really uplifting this year.”
