Who created this course?

TESSA is a network of Teacher Educators, at the heart of which is a bank of Open Educational Resources (OER) available on the TESSA website [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . The OER cover the primary school curriculum and show teachers how to put theories about active learning into practice. Learning outcomes are for the teacher, meaning that the OER can support teachers and teacher educators.

African Storybook is an initiative of Saide, a South African NGO involved in open education projects across sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative responds to the challenge of a shortage of books in African languages with digital innovation that provides open access to locally created children's picture storybooks in more than 100 of the languages spoken in Africa. The African Storybook website is a growing collection of more than 4000 storybooks that can be read, adapted, translated, downloaded and printed. The website also offers publishing tools for users to create and publish their own storybooks.

Assumptions we have made in writing this course

Teaching early reading is demanding, and extremely important. Being able to read fluently will enable children to access all aspects of the school curriculum and give them the best possible chance in life. In order to write this course we have had to make a number of assumptions:

  • That you will be teaching children to read in their first language, but that in the first five years at primary school they will make the transition to learning in English. You will therefore be encouraged to draw on the home language but also to introduce spoken English and English words where appropriate.
  • That the term ‘storybook’ (which we will be using frequently) can refer to fiction and non-fiction. Young children can learn a great deal from accounts of daily routines and factual information.
  • That although many of you may have experience of teaching early reading, you are new to online learning. We have tried to provide support where necessary.

You should now go to Section 1 of the course, ‘What do you need to know to teach early reading?’.