This entry is from Rotary Project Contact, Robin Jones, of the Rotary Club of Pretoria East in South Africa.

Collaboration Paves a Widening Path to Literacy

Children have eager minds! They love to learn. It is important to take advantage of that predisposition to learning in the early years by providing rich, life-related experiences in the classroom. One classroom option that builds early literacy skills is Souns for literacy.

Souns is a hands-on programme that was initially introduced to classrooms in Khayalitsha and Knysna through Rotary Clubs of Seapoint and Knysna over five years ago. The specific schools were the Ilitha School in Khayalitsha and preschools under the umbrella of Knysna Education Trust in Knysna. Success through the Souns programme led to further support in Knysna from DG Murray Trust and for foundation stage learners in Pretoria through the Rotary Club of Pretoria East. Collaboration has fuelled the path to learners to date and will hopefully provide access to even more learners in the future.

SOUNS is a simple, effective, user-friendly programme to ease learners along the first steps to becoming effective readers, opening the doors to a literate future. Children are first taught the sounds of the language, then, through engaging activities, they are taught the symbols associated with the sounds (letters), then once sufficient sound-symbol associations are known, they are taught to build words (phonetic writing). Once the learners are confident word builders (writers), they move naturally to blending symbols into words (phonetic reading).

Souns works so well that there is an initiative on several fronts to replicate the programme so that more children can have access to the materials. The programme currently reaches children across languages and in diverse learning environments from villages served by the Peace Corps to teacher training organizations reaching hundreds of classrooms in many provinces. Propelled by research based on years of using Souns, the Knysna Education Trust has developed a prototype – Fonix – that will be less expensive and therefore reach more classrooms. Efforts in Pretoria are currently engaged in building prototypes as well. Cooperation and collaboration is the proven key to progress.

The Souns programme reaches over 15000 learners annually and will continue to expand, limited only by available resources. Rotary is convinced this programme works and is grateful to know DG Murray Trust is involved. Partnerships are critically needed to expand the programme to benefit new groups of learners every year.

Visit the Souns web site: http://www.souns.org/PDF_files/whitepaperforAfricaweb.pdf/

Pretoria based project: http://www.rotarypretoriaeast.org.za/services_globalgrants.htm .