Calitzdorp and Kruis Rivier
During the week of 8 to 16 April, a small and very dedicated CBN team of five people visited four schools in the Klein Karoo to hold a series of workshops in the rural area in and around Calitzdorp. Basing ourselves at Red Rock Hills Guest Farm, we stayed in two cottages there, surging out every day for four days to hold reading workshops with our target age group of children. between ten and twelve years of age. Our welcome exceeded all expectations, and we found young readers who were keen to read and teachers and librarians who were ready to facilitate anything that would help to improve the reading levels of their learners. Schools and teachers are permanently too busy, but they found time for reading and to give their learners a chance of a new book experience. We also visited the very well organized Bergsig Library where we were given a warm welcome in spite of some communication hiccups. (Communication with the right person in a school or library is always problematic – even starting early and persevering.) We look forward to backing this up with a second project next year.
During the week, we met with approximately 300 children, four teachers and a librarian in Calitzdorp and five facilitators in an after-school reading project in Prince Albert as well as their management team in two separate meetings to demonstrate the toolboxes..
KRUISRIVIER FARM SCHOOL
Farm schools do not fall often under the public gaze. They should. There are ninety of them in the Western Cape Province alone, and they offer an education to children living too remotely to attend public schools. They have a long tradition, both in South Africa and abroad. They have their origins in small schools worldwide that were the beginning of education in rural areas – sometimes very fine education.
Kruisrivier school struggles to serve a varied and changing age-group of approximately 45 children in two classes. The principal was absent on the day we attended, but we were warmly welcomed by the acting principal who smartly organized the whole school back from break, into orderly rows, and into the second classroom that doubles as a church on Sundays. English is not much spoken this far from town, but we have found over many years that almost all children understand English better than anyone expects – due largely to the influence of television. They see the story on the screen, hear the words of the story being spoken … absorb the meaning and the sound of a language they may not hear much in ordinary conversation. That helps. It is a starting point. Speaking English themselves is problematic, as is reading another language with a differently sounding alphabet. But there is a base to begin with and we begin there.
CALITZDORP HIGH SCHOOL GRADE SIX
An inspiring teacher and an interested and focused group of learners made this one of the most successful visits of the week.
EXCELSIOR AFTER-SCHOOL READING GROUP
After a shaky start (someone forgot we were coming), we met with a bright and interested group who rapidly refocused on books and reading instead of making for home.
BERGSIG LIBRARY READING GROUP
This charming library (and librarians) play host to many children studying or reading after school and we were entertained by (and entertained) about twenty of them to some fun reading – with the CBN teddy bear in attendance.
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KNOWLEDGE SHARING EXERCISE OVER THE SWARTBERG PASS
The trip to from Calitzdorp in the Klien Karoo to Prince Albert in the Great Karoo involves driving over the Swartberg Pass – one of the most beautiful and thrilling mountain passes in the world – descending into the welcoming village pf Prince Albert, a warm Karoo welcome and the chance to share ideas and methods with a group of amazing local facilitator – the first time CBN has been able to share and compare ideas with a group of dedicated people working towards the same goal of more children of the age-gtoup 1- to 12,reading with confidence, understanding and enjoyment . It was both a humbling and enlightening experience. We hope it will lead to great thing and a conduit of knowledge between the coast and the High Karoo.
We are already thinking about a return to this area, armed with more local knowledge (and contact telephone numbers!)
FACILITATORS TAKING PART:
Wilien van Zyl – workshop manager
Lesley Beake creative director
Toast Coetzer – photographer and facilitator
Hugh Clarke and Mary Cadogan who we were delighted to welcome as long-standing volunteers from Ireland.
The CBN large teddy-bear
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BOOKS WE USE IN The Karoo WORKSHOPS
The stories we choose to begin with are those that speak directly to a child – often picture books to aid the listening process. We like to begin with stories that make them laugh and relax into the session. Every good book has a hook for discussion, and this too is part of our process. ‘Don’t open this book’ by *** gives a very clear message about reading, involves participation in the story (should we turn the page?) and also involves reading body-language in the illustrations as well as words. It works. It is also a great opportunity for dramatic reading by the facilitator, (with a bit of practice.)
Another book we used in this week of workshops was Tiger Walk by South African writer Diane Hofmeyr with delightful illustrations by ***. This book speaks to both fears and imagination and never fails to fascinate children who hear it read. Some of the fears are universal (‘I’m a bit frightened of swimming’ the child confesses to the brave tiger as the prepare to cross a river. ‘I’m a bit frightened there might be eels.’ But every fear turns into a great adventure – and fun. Reassuringly, the boy takes on some of the bravery of the tiger as he falls asleep and the huge animal slides back into the picture on the bedroom wall (Tiger Surprised, by Henri Rousseau.)
Ouma Ruby’s Secret by the late Chris van Wyk also speaks directly to the South African child. Born in Riverlea, Johannesburg, in the time of Apartheid, Chris presents a vivid picture of township life with a strong reading message. Ouma takes him to buy books, encourages him to read in many ways, but sadly cannot read herself – something the child (Chris) finds out when she cannot read his birthday message at her party.
Fly Eagle, fly, by Christopher Gregorowski is a South African classic, this one with beautiful illustrations by Niki Daly that touch the heart of children, who can see themselves in the chick that may look like a chicken, but which turns out to be an eagle.
All of these stories excite discussion and interest, as does the surprise of the graphic novel series Kwezi by Loyiso Mkizi and his team who have created a series of powerful black super-heroes who storm through South African skies to save the day and fight for the good. (They also have a series of soccer stories that really interest children bored by predictable topics, moral endings and conventional illustration. Old books, in other words. There is no shortage of books to hook readers with, they just don’t tend to appear in donated cartons of books nobody wants any more. They are much more expensive!
Part of the success we have observed with these books is the element of surprise – that a book could be about something that has real meaning for a South African child, that a book can touch their hearts and encourage them to read for themselves.
We use new, or very good second-hand books that sparkle before they are even opened. Yes, they are expensive, but they have value in other ways. They are attractive to touch, to hold … to read. They attract children the same way that cleverly marketed commodities like Barbie Dolls and *** do. They make children want to hold them and … well, read them. And excellence is our only criteria in choosing them.
There are many more books that could be mentioned here, both local and from other cultures and other times (including the future). Our goal in helping children to love reading is not only to get them picking up a book as an optional activity or enjoying one they are persuaded to read in an educational capacity. It is to stimulate and encourage reading in enough depth to enable empathy, imagination and a feeling of being in the story they are reading. Of understanding on a deeper level , one that lies under the surface of books as well as oceans.
We compare reading, in fact, to swimming. They can swim a few strokes sedately on the surface, learn to swim fast with their head dipping into the water … or they can dive as deep as their skills allow to find a magical, undreamed-of world populated by books and stories. A world that becomes their imagination. Forever.
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USING NON-FICTION
We begin with picture books (and have never once heard an older child complain that such books are for babies.) We proceed through specially created themed stories produced by CBN, but along the way we introduce the idea of non-fiction that is not a textbook.
Locally, very good examples of this are The Cambridge University Rainbow Reader series with has over 350 titles covering a wide range of themes in both fiction and n on-fiction. They are colourful, bright, well-written and illustrated and, above all, interesting. (They also happen to be very good value for money.)
Any book published by Dorling Kindersley is going to be good value on a vast number of subjects from cowboys to dinosaurs and a great deal in between.
POETRY
All our presentations, whether in workshops or in our Reading Toolboxes, are themes that are carefully selected to offer maximum interest and value. We don’t follow the curriculum slavishly but enhance it with diversions into general knowledge and different kinds of reading. Each part of a theme would typically hold fiction, non-fiction and free expression in the form of blank verse.
Poetry is somehow expected to rhyme. Taking that pressure away (which often leads to uncomfortable pairing of words) gives children freedom to express deep feelings in few words. They can look for the sense, rather than the rhyme. It offers complete freedom of expression without the need of punctuation and sentence structure.
CREATIVE WRITING AND ILLUSTRATING
We believe that reading, writing, and illustrating foster creative minds and we offer plenty of opportunity to do all three. Tie-dying a T-shirt may not sound like reading – but will help is if is linked in some way to story, to non-fiction (instructions) and maybe a short piece of free verse
The key word is freedom. We encourage the idea of Book Journals (we call them Book-Books) and tell the children that we are not interested in neat handwriting or careful punctuation (at first). Their writing is their own private space and they can write what they want. Later, we tell them, they can go back and polish their work if they want to share it. That gives a motivation to use language correctly that otherwise acts as a brake on their creativity. (Faced with the idea of freedom to write what they want, children sometimes ask for a ruler so they can start the conventional way, and an eraser to rub out mistakes. It takes time, but eventually thy see what we are offering them and make the big leap.)
THEMES
All our reading ideas are themed. There might be a non-fiction book about shoes (one of our most successful workshops is fashion themed), that leads to creative design, reference to the history of shoes and stories about shoes – of which there are plenty to choose from. A bit of blank verse could round things off very well – and then the chance to settle down with a book about footwear, or more shoe-stories. (For details of the twelve main themes that form our three Reading Toolboxes, see Appendix A.)
