How school libraries improve literacy: some evidence from the trenches
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Date
2013
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Unisa Press
Abstract
The article comes out of a panel discussion, featuring five teacher-librarians, which was
broadcast to schools across the Western Cape Province of South Africa in 2011. Four
of the panelists are graduates of the University of the Western Cape's school librarian
programme. The request for the broadcast came from two managers of the Qids-Up
school improvement project in the Western Cape Education Department, which has sent
collections of books to over 400 historically disadvantaged schools across the province.
The aim of the project was to improve prevailing low literacy levels with injections of
attractive reading materials in the languages spoken in the schools. The two managers,
however, were concerned that the donations of books had had little impact. The article
focuses on participants' stories about their reading projects. The discussion provides
inspiring and convincing evidence for those, like the author, who have been arguing for
years that without libraries and dedicated school- or teacher-librarians, the millions spent
on book donations and literacy projects might be wasted.
Description
Keywords
School libraries, Teacher-librarians, Literacy, South Africa
Citation
Hart, G. (2013). How school libraries improve literacy: some evidence from the trenches. Mousaion 31(1): 47-60