Harnessing the Power of Families to Change Literacy Outcomes for Children Living in Poverty

Abstract for a Comm Talk from the 2022 International SBCC Summit in Morocco: 

"Nal'ibali, South Africa's national reading-for-enjoyment campaign, engages South Africans in its annual World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) celebration. A brand-new children's story in all 11 official languages is released each year and Nal'ibali's network of partners, the public and the media are all called upon to promote the event, amplify the importance of reading aloud for children's literacy, and to read this same story out loud to children on the day, in their home language. The event forms part of Nal'ibali's ongoing work to promote reading-for-enjoyment with children in all South African languages. Since the 2013 launch which reached 13 000 children, participation peaked at over 3 million pledges in 2021, despite lockdown conditions. The event is easily South Africa's largest literacy celebration but does the momentum of participating in a large-scale national event lead to long-term individual behaviour change? 2021 research, using surveys and interviews, revealed that 67% of families who made their first World Read Aloud Day pledge increased their family literacy involvement and 71% of families completed the full family literacy behaviour string: talking about reading, finding reading resources, planning a set time, making a reading place and engaging in reading most days. Whilst this indicated a strong behaviour change success, we found that the number of families pledging made less than half of our pledgers, with the bulk coming from schools and community organisations."