The Indigo school is exhibiting their Grade R class literacy project at the Albany Museum, titled: ‘My Favourite Words’. The project forms part of a larger context and deeper concern for the latest findings published by Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), who verified that almost four in five Grade 4 pupils fall below the lowest internationally recognised level of reading literacy. Children in Foundation phase are battling to learn to read, and by Grade 4, are unable to read in order to learn.
Indigo School head Catherine Pamphilon said it was within this context that the school put together a Reggio Emilia and Paulo Freire inspired literacy project for their Grade R class.
“The aim of this project was to get our children to think about words, and their relationship to them,” said Pamphilon. “Each child had to think of three of their favourite words, their experience of these words, and draw a picture and create a clay object of their word.
“Alongside this project, we also visited and spent a morning at the Makana Children’s Library, created our own word books, using Montessori reading cards. and put the exhibition together”.
The exhibition runs from 1 September to 1 October. The Indigo School is giving away 30 FREE EARLY READERS to school groups visiting the museum this month, in support of literacy development in the early years.
