Last Thursday September 8th marked the 55th annual celebration of International Literacy Day. Across the world, people planned special programs and projects to remind us of the importance of achieving literacy for all people and populations, as well as to celebrate the power of literacy to enrich and transform lives. This International Literacy Day, Impact Network was named a 2022 Successful Practices Honoree from The Library of Congress Literacy Awards Program!

Here in Eastern Province, Impact Network joined the provincial celebration in Chipata where hundreds of people gathered to demonstrate all the work being done in the region in support of this year’s theme: Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces. A big thank you to Bertha Phiri, Learning Officer, and Ester Phiri, Teacher Supervisor, for helping to represent Katete District!

In honor of International Literacy Day, I want to highlight a few of the many programs we implement at Impact Network in order to ensure that our students get high-quality literacy education:

Our Early Childhood Education teachers work tirelessly to make games and activities for our youngest learners to ensure they are introduced to literacy in a fun, play-based manner. The teachers plan lessons which allow pupils to explore early reading skills through song, dance, hands-on exploration and games.

In addition, the teacher facilitate a “story time” in which learners hear exciting stories read aloud, act out stories, and tell stories of their own.

Our Grade 1 and Grade 2 teachers facilitate ReadSmart Cinyanja lessons to ensure early primary pupils develop strong literacy skills in their local language.

The teachers facilitate three different hands-on activities in each lesson and each activity is carefully designed and scaffolded to help pupils gradually build the skills needed for reading and writing. The pictures, letter cards, and mouth chart pictures make the activities exciting and relevant for learners.

This program is still being designed and piloted, but the first year’s data show extremely promising results!

Our Guided Reading program is specialized to help our older learners to apply their literacy skills in English as well as local language.

Guided reading sessions are small group tutoring sessions in which pupils with similar skill levels get focused support reading and comprehending text in English. The small group setting and specialized support help pupils to “breakthrough” to English literacy.

This is an essential step in their educational process since all upper primary classes and tests are given in English; additionally all secondary and tertiary education programs are exclusively in English.

International Literacy Day is a time to reflect on the progress being made towards global literacy, and it is also a time when we are reminded that we are not alone in these efforts. All over this region of Zambia, all over Africa, and all over the world, there are others working alongside us at a distance to ensure that literacy skills are accessible to all. At Impact Network, we will continue to do our part by ensuring that all pupils get meaningful literacy learning opportunities as they progress through our programming.

We are not alone in these efforts...