High-quality graded materials which support literacy development

Story Books

• Well designed, attractive, durable, appropriate size
• Graded; language already part of oral repertoire
• Repetition and recycling of vocabulary and sentence structures
• Illustrations: Support meaning; construct positive identities; learners envisage themselves as readers and writers
• Cover range of topics (fiction and non-fiction); deal with important concepts; creative
• Supplemented with songs/rhymes and exercises to consolidate and extend what has been learnt

Big Books

• Sturdy, printed back- to- back
• Excellent resource for shared, side-by-side reading in which teacher provides model of ‘a reader’ and apprentices child into reading

Workbook

• Exercises are varied and well-conceptualised
• Includes: handwriting exercises; various exercises working with letters and words; choosing words to label pictures; completing sentences; writing a sentence using a simple frame; writing a paragraph using a model
• Consistent format of activities/lessons helps teacher and learners

Teacher’s Guide

• Well-designed; correct length; very practical
• Methodologically sound; clear explanation of lessons
• Supports teachers’ interaction with learners, e.g., provides excellent questions for shared reading
• Provides the structure for units
• Excellent section on homework (simple, sound and feasible) and includes worksheets that can be photocopied
• Excellent section on assessment
• Begins to develop meta-language for understanding and talking about literacy in Xhosa; recognises that teachers are bilinguals