Community Trust Launches Three Literacy Centres
31 July 2019In line with their goal to improve the reading ability of children in Uitenhage, the Volkswagen Community Trust officially opened three new literacy centres this month. The official opening event took place on 12 July, but the centres at Noninzi Luzipho Primary, James Ntungwana Primary and Vuba Primary started operating earlier this year. This means that – including the centres at Ntlemeza Primary and Mngcunube Primary School – the Community Trust has five centres aimed at teaching children in Uitenhage to read and understand what they read. “Our one goal is to ensure every child in Uitenhage is functionally literate by the end of Grade 3, or by age 10,” says the Community Trust’s Vernon Naidoo. “We work with foundation phase learners, from Grade R to 3, to help children succeed.” The lessons are mainly aimed at teaching children to read and understand books that are written in English – which helps when they start Grade 4, where they are taught in English at school. “A part of the literacy centre’s approach is for the learners to have book buddies, where learners pair up and read to each other as well,” says Naidoo. The centres are all housed at schools in Kwanobuhle. “We select schools based on the names given to us by the Department of Education, and we have worked with these schools in the form of various interventions, mainly focused on literacy.”