When you were at primary school did you use the SRA reading and comprehension program?  It was certainly popular in Australia in the 1960s when I was at Wodonga State School No 37.  

VSO volunteers David Jackson and Jonathan Coolidge have devised a similar program specifically for primary school children in the Kagera region of Tanzania.

The Kagera Reading Program is a set of 60 short stories and passages with associated word lists and comprehension exercises, each on a separate laminated card.  There are also cards with the answers and a card with an explanation for the teacher about how to use the program most effectively in the classroom.

Thanks to some very generous friends in Australia, Steve and I have bought 16 sets of these at about A$50 for each set.  I am working on a program to get them into schools before we leave.

Hildegarda, the english teacher at Nyakato PS has taken a set and is trialling it in her classes.  In a week or so she will run a demonstration lesson to show the other english teachers in Nyakato Ward how to use the program.  If they choose to use it, each school will receive their own set of the program.  I have asked the Nyakato Ward Education Co-ordinator (WEC) to monitor the use of the sets of cards – I don’t want them locked in drawers and never seeing the light of day!

I have also talked to the WEC from Karabagaine Ward about the program and hope to have a demonstration teacher at Kabale school too – that is where those beautiful children on the front of the Teaching Aids & Resources book are pupils.

Thanks especially to Bruce and Norm Anderson and to Rev Peter Cook and the Hamilton Uniting Church for their very generous donations that have allowed this to go ahead.