When 22-year-old Asive Mcunukelwa, from Molteno, landed a job as an educational assistant at a local primary school in 2020, she was overjoyed.
She had long been looking for work, but as it is for many other young people in her community, employment opportunities are scarce.
She soon realised many Grade 7 learners struggle to read for meaning, and her joy was soon replaced with concern. “These children were getting unsatisfactory grades and their literacy skills were not on par with their level of education.
“I later discovered that a lot of them had not been exposed to any literature until they started Grade 1. I also realised that for them, sharing stories started and ended in the classroom. I knew this was a problem and I felt desperate to change it,” she said.
Fortunately for Asive and the children in her community, an opportunity to address this issue presented itself.
An Eastern Cape literacy intervention project, Yizani Sifunde (isiXhosa for ‘come, let’s read’) was launched in 2021. Funded by the Liberty Community Trust and implemented in partnership with three prominent literacy NGOs, Nal’ibali, Book Dash and Wordworks, it focuses on nurturing the early literacy foundations of very young children, setting them up well for when they learn to read and write at school.
Yizani Sifunde provides underserved communities in the Eastern Cape with high-quality early childhood development (ECD) training, plenty of books for the children and their families, and literacy practices that families and the community can adopt and use independently.
Asive forms part of a network of Yizani Sifunde’s Story Sparkers who work with 43 ECD centres across Molteno, Burgersdorp, Sterkstroom, as well as East London and Berlin, addressing some of the literacy challenges that face the Eastern Cape. She supports three ECD centres in Molteno by delivering specially produced children’s books in isiXhosa and helping the staff to bring these books and stories to life in their classrooms. In addition to this, she runs her own after-school reading club.
“The most important part of my work is encouraging parents to become active supporters of their children’s literacy learning, particularly at home.
“For children to thrive later in school and life, they need to be surrounded by caring adults who create safe and stimulating environments for them that are filled with opportunities to play, imagine, listen to, think and talk about stories both at home and at school.
“When parents and caregivers ask me for story-sharing tips for their kids at home, I know my work is done,” she says.
To help children have the best chance of success at school and in life, caregivers need to start talking and reading to them in their mother tongue when they are babies and keep doing this throughout their lives.
Asive admits that she grew up believing that reading begins at school and is confined within the walls of a classroom.
“I think many people still hold that belief. The fact that some parents are not actively involved in their children’s literacy development is testament to that. They don’t know that most children’s language and learning development takes place in the early years.
“So, parents need to know that learning begins long before school and doesn’t stop when school is out. That’s why it makes me very happy to see some parents taking interest in the work that I do – I have had a couple of parents bringing their children to my book club and actually participating in the activities,” she says.
In addition to supporting select ECDs, Yizani Sifunde also allows interested community members in the surrounding areas to set up their own reading clubs, which means that other and older children can also benefit from the project.
To access?Nal’ibali’s?free print and audio stories for children, visit:? www.nalibali.org?or WhatsApp ‘Stories’ to 060 044 2254. Free Book Dash books can be read online at?bookdash.org/books?in a variety of languages. To access Wordworks home literacy programmes, including informal activities for children aged 0-8, and mini lessons for children in Grade R and Grade 1, visit www.homeliteracy.org.za.
