Overview

Book Village helps foundation phase students from low-income schools learn to read for meaning and enjoyment through a digital, live tutoring application and access to a digital library with thousands of books. In South Africa, 78% of learners could not read for meaning at the end of Grade 4, and the country ranked last out of 50 countries for reading comprehension. COVID 19 has so far resulted in a large loss of learning days for many students and has set them back in all areas of development. ‘As the poor will be most affected, inequality in education could widen social and economic implications in the long term’ (NIDS-CRAM). In order to support our children and community, we have developed a digital reading application whereby volunteer tutors can remotely teach students in low-income schools to read for meaning. Tutoring sessions will include assessments to determine the students reading level and progress, and reading sessions where students will be allocated the correct levelled reader from the AWEH! series by Oxford University Press. Students will then be able to read at their own pace with individual support. Students will have access to the digital library (SORA by OverDrive) where they can choose from thousands of books, including books in all South African official languages. Book Village provides all of the infrastructure to the schools along with our reading programme, digital library, and we will train and employ a member of the community as a facilitator. We align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and are here to help reduce poverty, improve education and support our children and the economy.