South Africa

Room to Read first implemented our Literacy Program in South Africa in 2006. Working against racial inequality and poverty, we partnered with South Africa’s Department of Basic Education to ensure the success and sustainability of our Literacy Program. Our program aligns with the country’s needs and the government’s focus on teacher training, instruction techniques, assessments and reading materials. 

We’ve designed our Literacy Program with an understanding of what is needed to create long-term gains: a focus on cultivating a love of reading, effective reading materials and explicit instructions for librarians. Our program design is also built to scale, leading to sustainable change in literacy instruction in early grades. In the long term, our goal is for every child to have access to the quality education they deserve, and we know that literacy is the foundation for all other learning throughout their lives.  

The South African government recognizes the caliber of our multi-layered approach to literacy, which currently includes providing grade 1 and 2 teachers with the skills and support they need to teach children to read and write in their home language, filling libraries with quality, diverse and inclusive book collections, and sharing structured curricular materials in schools across the country. This recognition has afforded us unique credibility as an education organization in South Africa, allowing us to expand our work into new schools and provinces.