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The Shine Centre

WORDS CAN CHANGE WORLDS ~ BUILDING A NATION OF READERS

What Shine does

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Shine runs five flagship centres in schools with strong infrastructure, committed staff, and previously disadvantaged parents, who choose to pay high transport costs from township areas in order to provide their children with what they believe to be a better education.

We offer a multi-sensory intervention programme twice weekly to all Grade Two and Grade Three learners who are not reading at the appropriate grade level.  We make sure that the learners have appropriate reading material to take home. Most of the learners on our programme have improved their reading age, some by up to three years.

We pair each learner, who needs intensive support, with a trained volunteer who serves as their learning partner and together they work through the Shine Language and Literacy Programme. The programme consists of four parts: shared reading, paired reading, 'have a go' writing, and word play.

Individual attention is vital; it also assists us in building up a detailed profile of the learner. This profile includes tracking their learning behaviour and reporting on their physical and emotional status.

we are currently developing our Outreach Programme to support other schools and businesses that would like to use the Shine model.

How Shine Started

In 2000, Maurita Weissenberg, an experienced primary school remedial teacher, established the Shine Centre in response to a need she identified while offering voluntary remedial support to second language learners at the Observatory Junior School in Cape Town. She saw that the school would benefit greatly from a structured, early intervention, educational support programme.

Why Shine Centres are needed

  • The average class in South Africa contains forty plus learners of greatly varying reading ages
  • A significant percentage of learners are two to three years below the class average in reading ability
  • The language of instruction is the learner's second or third language
  • Continual test failures and poor results lead to low self-esteem
  • Learners with learning disabilities such as dyslexia receive minimal remedial support and no other specialist support
  • Most parents are from low-income economic groups and cannot provide extra support
  • Teachers are overwhelmed and need support.