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International Literacy Day has been celebrated annually since 1966. This year’s theme is ‘Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces… an opportunity to rethink the fundamental importance of literacy learning spaces to build resilience and ensure quality, equitable and inclusive education for all'.

International Literacy Day has been celebrated annually since 1966. This year’s theme is ‘Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces… an opportunity to rethink the fundamental importance of literacy learning spaces to build resilience and ensure quality, equitable and inclusive education for all'.

International Literacy Day has been celebrated annually since 1966. This year’s theme is ‘Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces… an opportunity to rethink the fundamental importance of literacy learning spaces to build resilience and ensure quality, equitable and inclusive education for all'.

It’s been an eventful year. In spite of the Pandemic, we have much to celebrate in the promotion of early literacy and a culture of reading in the global South. The awards and milestones achieved by the institutions and people listed below should be applauded, given the many challenges they faced in 2020.

So, we’ve put together a list of all the excellent happenings that we’ve noted; if anything is missing, please let us know in the comments section below.

As part of their efforts to ensure that every child should own 100 books before the age of five, South African non-profit organization (NPO), Book Dash, recently did a remarkable thing: It created, published and distributed three new books during the national lockdown.

The organization gathered two teams of creative professionals who volunteered to pilot this new virtual Book Dash. Then, making the most of their learning from the past 14 physical events, Book Dash successfully replicated the experience online, with some adjustments.

In February we celebrate World Read Aloud Day (5 February) and International Mother Language Day (21 February).

Here are some links to find openly licensed storybooks and reading resources to read aloud in some of the 7,000 living languages:

Sometimes innovation is not about the shiny new things, but rather about grasping existing opportunities to make them work for you and your community, especially when confronted with a crisis.

‘Researchers are agreed that reading aloud is the single most important activity by which parents, grandparents and caregivers can foster early brain development, lifelong learning success, reading pleasure and reading skills.’

Guest blog by Dr Nkem Osuigwe, Human Capacity Development & Training Director, AfLIA

Early literacy is universally acknowledged to be critical when it comes to the education and development of our children, and their life-long learning. But even in countries where the home language is not a Western language, early literacy teaching is not in that language. This is unfortunate as research shows that children learn to read more effectively if they learn in their mother tongue. Since its inception in 2010, a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Lira, Uganda, the Mango Tree Literacy Lab (MTLL), has worked hard to address this, and to realize their belief that African children have the right to read, write and engage with ideas in a language they know and understand.

How do teachers and parents cope with the challenges of educating their children in uncertain times, while acknowledging resource limitations and avoiding cut-and-paste solutions, and copyright infringements.

I’m fascinated by the simple notion of children authoring stories for other children to read and enjoy – it makes so much sense. In its project, Soma Book Café, went one step further. The four children whose stories were selected by judges consisting of other children and adults worked with published authors, illustrators, designers, and other book professionals to turn their ideas and words into a professional product in print and online. Putting these ideas into practise proved to be a lot more complex than envisaged; delivering thought-provoking learnings to the adults who took on the challenge.

Schools may be closed, but children can continue to learn and enjoy reading storybooks during this difficult period. We’ve told you about wonderful places to identify good storybooks in previous blog posts.

In this post, we’re going to tell you about resources for parents and caregivers who want to help their children with learning and reading.

For this blog series, the Early Learning Resource Network is reaching out to authors, editors, illustrators, translators, educators, publishers and other stakeholders who, through their creative endeavours, are working to grow and improve the early learning environment, specifically on the African continent.

Craig Esbeck and the team at Mango Tree Literacy Lab (MTLL) recently delivered a fascinating report about their EdTech Hub Sandbox findings. If you’re not familiar with the project, we’ve blogged about it here, and we’ve published the full report here, so take a look.

Kalamu Ndogo (Little Scribes) is a new book series written by children for children under the auspices of the Soma Book Café Watoto na Vitabu (Children and Books) storytelling hub and Saturday children’s programme. This is a space for children between the ages of six and 13 to hone their reading and storytelling skills. The series is a product of experimental work on how to facilitate children to research and write original stories inspired by Tanzanian storytelling traditions. These stories are also informed by how the children experience contemporary realities and their aspirations beyond the here and now.

Craig Esbeck, Director, Mango Tree Literacy Lab

These non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which have innovatively adopted open licensing publishing and distribution models and that specialize in solving early literacy challenges in developing nations, were selected along with a list of other initiatives, ‘for their exemplary work in ensuring that children continue to build critical literacy skills.’

Despite the availability of these resources, we need more storybooks in local languages to ensure all children can learn to read in their mother tongue, identify with characters that look and 'sound' just like them, and develop a love of reading. Kirsty von Gogh and Lisbeth Levey have written a paper called 'African children deserve stories about themselves' exploring the intersecting roles of African authors, illustrators, communities, and languages in story creation, download and read the paper here.

Now that so many of us are locked down and locked in because of COVID-19, it is the time to explore the virtual world of children’s stories – all free to read and all openly licensed. A few great platforms are listed below:

African Storybook

Ubongo co-founder, Nisha Ligon, describes this non-profit social enterprise as the world’s biggest classroom, and with a reach to 17 million learners across sub-Saharan Africa, she’s not wrong.