The family literacy project: bringing literacy skills to young children: a qualitative evaluation

The Family Literacy project addresses the need to raise the level of literacy in disadvantages areas of KwaZulu-Natal. Literacy groups have been established in a number of rural communities in the mountainous western part of the province. The present evaluation investigates the ways in which the project has influenced family practices with respect to literacy. This has been done by comparing literacy practices of three groups of women who are caregivers to three to five year old children; those who had participated in a literacy group for more than two years, those who had joined a literacy group more recently, and women with similar educational backgrounds from the same areas with children of the same age who did not take part in the project. All of the participants in the study have less than Grade 9 education themselves.