76% of Grade 4 can't read English. THRASS is the Answer!

One of the problem in the education section in my area is about education

My name is Michael Tsholo, I am from Kwazulu Natal Province, South Africa.

In my work, we have adopted the school in our recycling initiatives which involves almost 1000 schools in South Africa to help them raise funds for the school while they help to clean the environment.

In my dealings with the school I realize that they have even bigger problems that need to be addressed

A necessary of education Improvement

A study was conducted by an organization called PIRLS ( Progress in International Reading and Literacy) which found that 78% of Children in grade 4 are not able to meet international benchmarks for reading and comprehension. A similar study was conducted in 2011 and at the time 76% of learners in grade 4 could not meet similar benchmarks. What this means is that in the period between 2011 and 2016 the situation had deteriorated by 2 percentage; this is in spite of numerous interventions that had been undertaken to improve the situation.

Kwazulu Natal is overwhelmingly rural and tends to underperform other provinces when it comes to indicators such as matric rates pass as well as literacy. The fact that township school from Kwazulu Natal is a top recycling school in the country makes the case for focussing on Kwazulu Natal as a province that should benefit from a literacy improvement plan

There is a continuous decrease in the learners' academic performance and well-being and many problems due to learners' insufficient knowledge of the medium of instruction. There is a continuous increase in learner enrolments but a decrease in the quality of education offered to all learners. Classes are too large non-homogenous with an increase in disciplinary problems resulting in greater classroom management problems

There is an evident increase in teacher stress and decrease in individual attention and a decrease in the learners' academic competencies. Overall poor academic development of learners has led to Grade 4 not being able to read English thus affecting the rest of their school development progress.

THRASS, program to help the student learn better

THRASS a reading pedagogy was developed in Australia and United Kingdom and has been used in South Africa on a limited scale by schools such as Amanzimtoti Primary School, Livingston Primary School, St Benedict, St Martins, and some Crawford schools. The schools that use THRASS have done so because they find THRASS helps children to be able to read at the very least at an age-appropriate level.

A teacher from Amazimtoti Primary School, Jacqui Stoltz recently wrote the following to us: “ Hi Mojaki. Just a quick word to say we are loving the Grade R books. The teachers said that they are fantastic for the start of grade 1 just as revision as not all children come equally prepared”

This is where I have identified a program called THRASS which is an international program that helps children to read and understand English in an effortless way.

Help us to support the THRASS project

At this stage, my dream is to collect at least 1500 USD to buy the initial school materials for the school.

The funds will be paid directly to the supplier to deliver the books for the 2021 start to the academic year. This will go a long way to assist the teachers to be able to help the children with learning challenges

Your help will mean a lot for the children and for a better future!

Thank you so much in advance