I am a Grade 3 teacher at the above school who finds Do and Learn very effective and applies it with great success in the classroom. Every year I receive learners in Grade 3 who can not read at all – this year it was 15 learners! With the pandemic and learners still attending 50% school, the situation is worse than in other years. I simply turn to Do and Learn – and have always been able to get learners to read. Of the 15 learners of this year, I have 14 who can read from a reading book with great success and pride. The 15th learner is cognitively handicapped and also has major vision problems, but he
too can recognize a good number of words.

This year I taught a 10-year-old learner to read (already her 4th year in the phase and who is testing as a 3-year-old) with Do and Learn. I wish you could experience it – the absolute pride and intense joy that the learner experiences. She can make no further progress but can not wait to get to the mat to recognize her words that are flashed for her, to sound new words correctly (she now knows all her sounds) as well as to read to me the lesson that was learned at home. If a learner has successfully mastered Do and Learn, they can continue with the Golden Reading Series’ “Red Ball” with the greatest ease. It is an old reading series but they feel so humane because they can read now.

The Egra also improves – They recognize all the Do and Learn words between the sight words. Our entire Grade also notices the improvement here every term.

Do and Learn is truly a “miracle cure” that empowers our weaker learners and makes them feel humane and warms our hearts as educators!

Email: dianakoorts@gmail.com

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As a Grade R educator at Totius Primary School, I was first introduced to the Do and Learn programme in 2008. 

The learners in my class who attended this wonderful programme with Dokka Swart excelled in Language Development. 

As a qualified Foundation Phase Educator, during my years of teaching, I would always recommend this programme to all the parents, colleagues and friends.

Needless to say, when I had my own daughter in 2016, this was one of the programmes that I knew I would like her to be exposed to. 

Ghia has been in a nursery school from the age of 4 months. When she turned 5  in 2021,  I felt the time was right for her to start with an additional enrichment programme with a fun learning experience. 

That’s when I made contact with Dokka Swart and asked her if Ghia could join her classes. 

After the first lesson, she could manage to read a few sight words and sentences. She could also write her own name!

My daughter enjoys the lessons and can’t wait for the following week.

The Do and Learn Programme is the best!

Yesterday afternoon at the aftercare centre on Jeria’s farm, the lady who usually helps me on Thursdays could not come to work.   

With her not being there on Thursday I had to make a quick plan to help her group of learners.  Fortunately, I had my Do and Learn package with me as I was helping the learners in town earlier on the day.  

I commenced by introducing  the flashcards of  Lesson 1 to this group of Grade 4 learners but they did not recognise any of the words.  So I knew I had to start at the very beginning.  After only a few minutes they could read all of the first lessons, showing the actions and building their own sentences! 

The other children who were supposed to be doing their homework were watching us  all of this time and, needless to say,  also wanted to do the Do and Learn lesson!  I knew that they could already read and did not oblige.  In the first group, however, was a very small boy, the weakest of the group and I started to work with him.  I promise you I could not believe my eyes as this young boy almost immediately did Lesson 1 and 2 together.  It was truly amazing!  He read the words and sentences as fast as I could pack them out on the carpet.  I thought to myself “wow, this is impossible!”  I then took the others as well and they also placed their words and sentences on the carpet and read them with total confidence. 

So, if it means they just memorise these words initially they will recognise and say them again in future if they come across them in a lesson.  What struck me most was the children’s faces!  The joy!  And every time they read “I am clever” and we give each other those high fives – it is just so priceless! 

Of course, I wanted to take a video from the beginning but I realised this would not be possible as the attention would then be on the camera instead of on the lesson.  

When my helper returns next week I will have to make a plan to see all of the children on Wednesdays to continue with the Do and Learn material. I think, as far as success is concerned, or as results are concerned, the Do and Learn programme yields faster results because of the constant repetition of words and sentences. 

I find it very interesting to see how the children react to every new word!