The South African reading-for-enjoyment campaign Nali’ibali has taken another step to promote and encourage a reading culture through its literacy mentorship programme.
The latest effort is introducing books to babies and toddlers.
This reading campaign was created to provide useful literacy development tips to parents and caregivers. The initiative complements existing reading programmes – all aimed at addressing the country’s high illiteracy rates, found to be 78% among Gr. 4 learners.
Nal’ibali has been hard at work since 2012 to produce locally relevant and culturally contextualised stories in all 11 official South African languages.
The Nal’ibali (Xhosa for “here is the story”) campaign seeks to address the literacy problems in South Africa by helping adults and children alike fall in love with reading material presented to them in their mother tongue.
Gogo, Nal’ibali’s reading granny, explains that from birth to the age of three, children learn an enormous amount of language – even if they do not talk a lot.
So, the more stories you tell and books you read to them, the more language they learn.
Paying attention to books with babies and toddlers is about enjoying the time you spend together and following their lead in deciding what to try next.
Here are a few useful tips to consider:
- Start by asking, “Shall we look at or read this book?”
- Babies and toddlers enjoy playfulness, rhyme, rhythm and repetition. Have lots of enjoyable time together talking and reading your children’s favourite books again and again.
- Sit comfortably with your child on your lap, or next to you, when you share books.
- You do not even have to finish the book. Explore a book together for as short or as long as you both want.
- Make an effort to talk about the pictures, ideas and what is happening in the book. Ask the children what they think, and also say what you think, too.
