PanSALB urges pupils to read

Hundreds of pupils in the Soutpansberg West Circuit participated in the Reading, Listen and Writing Competition recently hosted by the provincial Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB).

According to the senior provincial manager of PanSALB, Ms Joyce Madiba, the purpose of the competition was to promote a culture of reading and writing among pupils. “There are many academic challenges that could be a stumbling block for pupils if they do not read,” Madiba said. “If a child is provided with motivation to read, that child will read and develop a love for reading even after school.”

She aid that artists expressed feelings and life-affirming messages through works of literature, ranging from poetry, fairytale, biographies, historical writings to novels. “We always encourage our children - and also adults - to read books written in our indigenous languages,” she said.

It was emphasised that there was more benefit from reading a book written in one's home language, since the reader also got to learn new idioms and sayings that might get excluded from the use of everyday speech.

The adjudicators of the writing competition noted that the pupils excelled in punctuation from the use of capital letters in proper nouns to the insertion of diacritics. They praised educators and principals for playing a vital role in providing quality writing skills to the pupils. In the reading category, judges were left disturbed by the pupils' low reading standard. However, it was also noted that it was possible to up the reading standard through encouraging pupils to read.

An educator from Madodonga Primary School, Mr Ishmael Delekisa, said that they were very proud to be part of the project "and we hope to perform even better next year. PanSALB is doing a very good job and we look forward to working with them again".

Date:09 October 2017

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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