During 2015 The Read to Lead Campaign was launched by the Department of Basic Education and will continue over the next four years (2015-2019). The focus of the campaign is to improve the reading abilities of all South African children whilst the main aim of the campaign is to ensure that all learners are able to demonstrate age appropriate levels of reading by 2019. This is also a response to national, regional and international studies that have been conducted during the past few years showing that South African children are not able to read at expected levels, and are unable to execute tasks that demonstrate key skills associated with literacy. The campaign will provide teachers and schools with clear directives on the Department’s expectations of achieving the expected levels of performance. Whilst the improvement in learner achievement is an important aim of the campaign, children should be motivated to make reading a lifestyle choice.
Grow Learning Company developed an Interactive Reading Solution Kit as part of the Read to Lead Campaign and partnered with the Department of Basic Education. The kits were thoughtfully designed to encourage children to fall in love with reading. 150 of these Interactive Reading Kits were pledged to schools in the 8 education districts of the Western Cape and a further 50 kits were pledged to each of the remaining provinces in South Africa. Teachers at all the schools will be trained in how to use the kits.
A child’s success is determined in many ways before he or she turns eight. During those early years, how a child learns and develops mentally, emotionally and socially is critical. If we get it right in the early years, we can expect to see children thrive throughout school and their adult lives. At Grow Learning we focus strongly on developing structured solutions and meeting the outcomes of learning through play for Early Childhood Development.
Structured activities are important throughout a person’s life, but they play a critical role in early childhood. These are very tender years for a child. What they learn during these years lays the groundwork for their future social, emotional, physical and cognitive skills. The quality of a child’s earliest environments and the availability of appropriate structured experiences at the right stages of development are crucial determinants of the way each child’s brain architecture develops. Our experience at Grow Learning shows that when children are happily engaged in a playful pursuit, they become immersed in the experience and learning becomes fun.
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