• PK Learning to read

An old Storeroom, known as the Wendy House because it was made of wooden slats and stood on concrete blocks, has been converted into a Reading Room for the benefit of the 10 Grade Rs who will graduate from Pikkewyntjies this year and move up to Grade 1.

It’s amazing what a good clean-up and a coat of paint will do. If you saw the new facility for the first time now, you would never dream it had been a storeroom. It’s been furnished with a few comfy chairs and there are shelves to hold story books and Zaan has painted a delightful mural on the wall.

The Room says, “ Come in and make yourself at home..”

An ex-teacher, Linda Briers, “Tannie Linda” comes to school twice a week to teach the children the building blocks of reading so they will be ready when they get to school. On Tuesday afternoons she comes to work with six Afrikaans-speaking children and on Thursdays she teaches the four English-speaking children. They are learning to read in their home language, their moedertaal.

Zaan says they look forward all week to their afternoon with Tannie Linda because they love her and they are very eager to learn what she teaches them because they all want to be able to read.

That’s quite a tribute to her teaching and the school is very grateful to her. The children haven’t realised they should be grateful, they just know they love it. Gratitude will come, later, when they realise one day the value of the skill she gave them.