Encouraging a culture of reading by providing Kinyarwanda storybooks, school-based mentors, and training to teachers
Project Name
Improving Reading and Writing Capacity in Primary Grades
Location Implemented
Rwanda
Competition Entered
Grant Competition 2011
Reading Skill Targeted
Pre-Reading
Status
Winner
Collaborators/Partners
Education Development Center, Pearson, and the Rwandan Education Board (REB)
The Challenge
Rwandans do not have a culture of reading and neither schools nor parents have adequate resources to ensure that children are introduced to reading at an early age. Very few children's books by Rwandan authors are available, further inhibiting the development of a reading culture.
The Big Idea
The project encouraged a culture of reading in Rwanda by providing support to, and training of, school-based mentors to improve teachers’ instructional practices, including through the incorporation of read aloud approaches; increasing access to Kinyarwanda storybooks in targeted schools and local bookstores; and developing local capacity to produce Kinyarwanda stories, including through a national story writing competition designed to develop a children’s book market for authors.
Results
More than 50,000 storybooks were translated into Kinyarwanda, printed, and shipped to the project’s 240 primary schools. Each school received 35 copies of the six different volumes from Drakkar’s Junior Africa Writers series, one for every two children in an average P1–P4 classroom. There were 148 school-based mentors and 55 headmasters trained to conduct a read-aloud lesson and to use four reading comprehension classroom pedagogical strategies. Mentors brought these methods to Kinyarwanda teachers in 162 schools.
Blogs and Media
Research and Resources
Drakkar / Lydie Hakizimana
Drakkar, Ltd., shares their ACR GCD-funded innovation to launch a national writing competition to improve development of and access to children's books in Rwanda.
