Abstract
This column describes a long-term service-learning project by faculty from an American university who travelled to Tanzania to consult with educators who work with and care for children with a wide range of disabilities. The project is focused on literacy education and has resulted in several books being developed and distributed in the Kiswahili language.
Keywords
Amina’s eyes sparkled as she reached into the brightly colored drawstring fabric bag and pulled out the first storybook. She opened it and immediately started to giggle when she saw the pictures of the elephant and the mosquito. Then she sat with Robin and read the story aloud. They laughed and talked about the story. After finishing the first story, Amina examined each of the remaining books in the bag, and when she realized that the books were hers to keep, her eyes lit up and she hugged Robin and whispered, “Asante” (“Thank you”). (See Note 1.)
Amina is a 7-year-old orphan who is cared for by women who work at the Irente Children’s Home in the Lushoto district of the Tange region of Tanzania. Her reaction to receiving her own set of storybooks was not uncommon. The same scene was repeated at a local school and with the children of a professor at the local college. Most children in rural Tanzania do not have books written in their language of Kiswahili in their homes.
Literacy in Tanzania
Literacy has been an ongoing concern for Tanzanians. At independence, in 1961, 85% of the total population (i.e., 80% men and 98% women) did not know how to read and write. Since then, literacy has been a high priority, and as a result, the country has made impressive gains, especially in adult literacy. For example, the adult literacy rose from 15% in 1961 to 90.4% in 1986 (Löfving & Nordlander, 1993). Unfortunately, this high rate has not been sustained. By 2011, the overall adult literacy rate had dropped to 73.21% (Hardman, Ackers, Abrishamian, & O’Sullivan, 2011). Further, there is a significant difference between the literacy rates of males (79.01%) and females (67.5%).
Education for children in Tanzania is an ongoing concern for the government. For example, in 2001, Tanzania implemented the Primary Education Development Program and eliminated public school fees as a means to increase access to primary education. Schooling is now mandatory for children ages 7 to 15 years, but although enrollment has dramatically increased, Tanzania has not yet achieved universal primary education. According to a recent survey, 15% to 20% of children in Tanzania still do not attend school (Dennis & Stahley, 2012).
With regard to children with disabilities, the picture is even grimmer. Generally, children with disabilities in Tanzania do not attend school. According to a special report commissioned by the Finnish government for the Ministry of Education in Tanzania, 140,000 children with disabilities attended school in 2005. This represents less than 1% of school-age children with disabilities (Karakoski & Stroem, 2005). A major result of this lack of school attendance is that children with disabilities have little or no exposure to literacy education. Compounding the problem of lack of school attendance is that there are few adults who are trained to work with children with special needs in any area much less literacy education.
The government is committed to increasing the literacy rate; however, three major obstacles inhibit progress: (a) lack of books in the home and community; (b) teachers lack appropriate training in teaching reading; and (c) a lower level of school attendance by females, who typically serve as teachers and primary caregivers. The result is a lower literacy rate for children and especially for children with disabilities.
Literacy Development and Instruction in Africa
Little literacy research has been conducted in countries in Africa where educational needs are critical and where contexts and languages vary from region to region (Greaney, 1996). What is known is that print materials are needed in primary classrooms across the continent and that much more literacy research is needed to improve and inform teacher practice (Mtenje & Mchazime, 2001). Further, there is a need for literature for children that reflects their lives and cultures (Hefflin & Barksdale-Ladd, 2001).
The Books-in-a-Bag Project
Special Education Service Learning Projects
For the past 5 years, the Kansas State University (KSU) College of Education has sent a team of faculty and students to Tanzania to participate in a special education service-learning project. With a different emphasis each year, to date, teams have developed curriculum materials for children with autism, conducted seminars and workshops for teachers at Sebastian Kolowa Memorial University, and worked in local schools that serve children with special needs.
A highlight of each trip is time spent working with children at the Irente Children’s Home. The center, under the direction of Mama Enna Mdemu, serves orphaned and abandoned children from birth to age 3. The center also serves as a training facility for young women (ages 16–24) who wish to gain skills in child development, household management, and nursing.
A favorite activity of teams has been to sit with the young children in the courtyard listening to Mama Mdemu as she tells stories to the children and staff.
These stories were short tales often with a moral or explanation of why things are the way they are. One of the most memorable stories was “Chura Na Jongoo” (“The Frog and the Centipede”). This story explains that young frogs, like young children, are impatient and, therefore, jump to conclusions.
As Mama Mdemu noted, “there is a rich tradition of oral storytelling in Tanzania; however, few books are available for children written in Kiswahili. It would be great to see my stories in print so our children can enjoy them when I am no longer able to tell them my small stories.”
In the summer of 2012, the team was asked to conduct a seminar focusing on literacy and numeracy for teachers at Sebastian Kolowa Memorial University. The team decided to publish an illustrated storybook based on “Chura Na Jongoo.” The story was translated into English and Kiswahili, and one of the team members, Rusty Earl, illustrated the story. The book was printed, and 50 copies were brought along for the seminar.
The storybook was used throughout the seminar to introduce literacy concepts. Specifically, the storybook was used to introduce the Five Big Ideas of Literacy Instruction (National Reading Panel [NRP] & National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000): phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. To reinforce instruction, station teaching was implemented, with teachers completing activities at each station. For example, at one station, story maps were introduced to track the story elements; another station featured how to do a picture walk through the book, pointing out text features and use of illustrations to tell the story. Other stations presented vocabulary and comprehension strategies.
The teachers were delighted with the story and wanted to know where they could get more copies and if more stories were being planned. As a result of this interchange, the idea for the Books-in-a-Bag project was conceived.
Literacy Development in Children as Major Focus
At the end of each trip to Tanzania, a planning meeting was held that included personnel from Sebastian Kolowa Memorial University to discuss goals and objectives for the following year. In 2012, the team and university administrators identified literacy development in children as the goal for the following year. The intervention design was guided by the Bronfenbrenner and Morris (1998) systemic bioecological theory, which emphasizes the importance of engaging and training both teachers and parents in facilitating literacy development in children. The team decided to offer training in literacy pedagogy for primary teachers as well as to offer training with members of a local home-based outreach team to work with parents.
To expand the reading selections, the team asked Mama Enna Mdemu to share another of her stories. She agreed, and told “Kisa Cha Tembo na Mbu” (“Elephant and the Mosquito”) and “Segura na Maji” (“Rabbit and the Water”). In addition, the teachers in the seminar were asked to list some of their favorite stories. They shared “Sindano ya Kushonea ya Mwewe” (“Hawk’s Sewing Needle”) and also provided ideas for an alphabet book. Finally, Japhary Shehaghilo, the director of the Irente Rainbow School, wrote Kagura Kamwe: The One-Legged especially for the project. This narrative tells the story of a little boy who, in spite of his disability, is able to help his family.
The team recognized that it would be inappropriate to transplant Western literature to a distinctly different culture (Super, Harkness, Barry, & Zeitlin, 2011) from that on which it was based; consequently, the team chose to print, in Kiswahili, familiar local stories that have meaning and relevance for the child. The stories were transcribed and produced in both languages. The team produced six storybooks and an alphabet book.
The team took the stories back to the KSU campus and recruited four local artists to illustrate them. To authentically illustrate the stories, each artist looked at photos collected from the Special Education Service Learning Team. The artists’ media included cut construction paper, watercolor, and pastels. In the meantime, the team had purchased fabric produced locally in Tanzania to construct drawstring bags to hold the books. With support from the Segal Family Foundation and a fund-raiser from Humanity Reads (www.humanityreads.org), 600 books were developed and printed for distribution during the summer 2013 trip.
Piloting Through the Community Outreach Team
The aim of the Irente Rainbow School Outreach Program is to develop community-based structures to offer support to all children with disabilities and their families in the Lushoto district. The community centers are located within the already existing structure of the diocese, which reaches out in almost every village of the district that through its parishes. Further, at each community center, a set of volunteers work with the local children and families on a weekly basis. Altogether, 20 centers serve more than 700 clients. The Community Outreach Team visits each center every 8 weeks.
After consultation with the Irente Rainbow School Community Outreach Team, the decision was made to conduct a pilot study of the Books-in-a-Bag program at the center in Soni, a small village about 10 km from Lushoto.
Literacy Training
The preparation occurred in three phases. The first included the Community Outreach Team from the Irente Rainbow School and graduate students from Sebastian Kolowa Memorial University. In order to properly train participants in how to use the literacy materials, they worked through the activities as if they were students being taught the literacy concepts.
The trainees were divided into six groups, each led by one of the KSU team members. Kisa Cha Tembo na Mbu (Elephant and the Mosquito) was selected as the book used to train and demonstrate the activities. Once the activities had been modeled, each group worked on a different book to ensure generalization of training. Moving from station to station, trainees participated in a variety of literacy activities dedicated to teaching each of the Five Big Ideas in Literacy Instruction (NRP & NICHD, 2000). Activities included a picture walk, identifying problems/solutions, and determing main ideas and details. Before each station concluded, trainees were given time to dictate in their native language what they took away from the activity and/or how they envisioned using the activity with their students. All of the local participants spoke and understood English as their second language, so it was important to allow them processing time in Kiswahili because it is their first language and because they will be providing instruction primarily to Kiswahili speakers.
During the second phase, two faculty members from KSU and three members of the Irente Rainbow School Community Outreach Team traveled to the community site to meet with volunteer staff of home-based interventionists for approximately 2 hr of training. Seated around a table, the members of the outreach team selected three books to demonstrate to the volunteers. Each team member explained the purpose of the Books-in-a-Bag intervention and demonstrated specific reading strategies, such as how to use the alphabet book and alphabet cards. Each of the in-home visitor volunteers then took turns reading a page in each book out loud, commenting on the drawings, and practicing the reading strategies. The outreach team member then demonstrated the accompanying materials and specific strategies to develop discrimination of the elements of a story, the sequence of the story, and letter–sound recognition. Mindful that many parents are not literate themselves, strategies to encourage joint attention to the drawing on each page and related discussion about the sequence of drawings was encouraged to predict the sequence of events and the story line by drawing solely from the illustrations.
In the third phase, the entire KSU service-learning team, outreach team members, in-home visitor volunteers, and several parents and children met at the community center on a regularly scheduled community support day. Members of the Community Outreach Team organized the parents into two groups, each with an outreach team member and several members of the research team. The outreach team member demonstrated a book with the parents and the related items in the bags, which consisted of a set of materials designed to support parent-and-child interaction with the storybook.
These three phases were conducted to ensure that the purpose of the Books-in-the-Bag project and the related teaching strategies were understood and ready to go to full scale. It was phenomenal.
Evaluation of the Book-in-the-Bag Intervention: Pilot Study
One of the aims of the Special Education Service Learning Team is to determine the usefulness of the books and the associated materials. At each regularly scheduled community intervention date, members of the Community Outreach Team distributes bags with one book and related materials to each family participating in the outreach program (subsequent books will be delivered on subsequent visits). (All families receive a bag and a book regardless of whether or not they agree to participate in the evaluation component.) The volunteer home-based interventionists and Community Outreach Team members demonstrate the literacy strategies to the families in groups, as practiced. Parents are encouraged to make the book readily available to their child for exploration at home and to look at and/or read the book daily. Volunteers visit families weekly, providing encouragement and demonstration as needed. There is no cost to the family for any materials.
Approximately every 2 months, parents return, as regularly scheduled, to the community intervention site for a child evaluation and parenting support. At this time, parents will receive the next book and related materials. A total of six story books are available. The Community Outreach Team members and volunteer home-based interventionists then provide literacy instruction and demonstrate the accompanying materials for the book. Again, parents practice these strategies while at the community site. Volunteer home-based interventionists continue weekly visits encouraging parents to explore and read the book and the related materials. Formal results of a study embedded within this project should be available sometime in the summer of 2014.
Data Collection Procedure
A dyad of trained graduate students (three teams of two) will attend each bimonthly community intervention meeting and invite parents to report on their perceptions and experiences with the Books-in-the-Bag project using a standard set of questions (see Figure 1). Gradute students will interview each parent individually, after informed consent, in their native Kiswahili on site. All interviews will be digitally recorded for coding in addition to the students’ handwritten notes. Interviews are designed to be completed in 10 min while the child is engaged in other activities. Teams will rotate across the year such that each team will conduct interviews twice during a 12-month period.
Parent survey on book use, 2013.
The interview questions address the child’s interest in and engagement with the book and the parent (or other family member) and child engagement with the book. During the first interview, parents will be asked to complete a brief demographic profile of themselves and their family. Digital files will be archived and uploaded for translation and coding by the research team. Results of the qualitative analysis will be applied to further program development (approved by KSU IRB #6737).
Conclusions
It is the intent of this project that the literacy training and materials will help to improve the literacy rates in Lushoto (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). Drawing from a systemic approach, the Books-in-a-Bag project engages not only those who directly affect the child but also those who are stakeholders in the educational success and well-being of the child. Knowledge is power, and with a more complex understanding of how explicitly literacy should be taught, there is optimism that these individuals can train others and help to expand knowledge of literacy strategies in other areas of Tanzania.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.