In order to improve child literacy in Rwanda The Gazelle Trust has written and produced a comprehension book, which has been distributed in class sets of sixty, to 4 community primary schools. The teachers of these schools were then trained on utilizing this resource within the classroom, and encouraged to use different methods of learning to enable the development of all students.

The Gazelle Trust understands that literacy is a major factor in reducing future poverty. Children who gain a good education and can read and write are much more likely to live above the poverty line, get jobs and stand up for their rights. In producing this resource book The Gazelle Trust hopes it has gone a small way to improving the current literacy resources in Rwanda.

This resource is a 92 page book consisting of six levels, based around the Rwandan primary education curriculum. Every level consists of five stories which each come with class activities, keywords and student questions. These are all designed to aid the students' ability to learn to read and write. The activities work with many skills to help engage all learners, and to create a fun and expressive learning environment.

The stories are written in a Rwandan context and are based on experiences the writer has read about or spoken about with colleagues and students. There is also a French version where the stories are still in English but the notes and activities are written in French; this is to help the Rwandan teachers who have limited English themselves, as their more predominant languages are Kinyarwanda, French and Swahili.

Note: This resource is available for anyone who wishes to use it and can be downloaded here for free in English or with French explanations.

The Gazelle Trust has tried to make the resource as easy to understand as possible, with thorough teacher notes and instructions in French for those who need them. So far the resource is being used in four schools (EP Kabare 1, EP Nyamugali, EP Remera and EP Gasetsa) in Remera Sector, a Rwandan administrative region. To make the project as sustainable as possible we wanted the schools to have some ownership of the books, and would therefore use them. The book was first used in a trial school where teachers and a select group of students were taught how to use it, and made comments on changes for improvement. After fine-tuning this resource the English teachers from the four schools were all thoroughly trained on methods of utilising this book to improve English teaching in the classroom. Following the training each school decided whether they wished to commit to using this resource in their classrooms and after doing so contributed a third of the printing cost for the books. Every school was given a class set of 60 books because in the initial planning stages students informed us that it was best to have one book per child; this can help with differentiation in lessons when students are asked to work through a story of their choice.

Since producing the book the author/trustee has left Rwanda, however The Gazelle Trust remains in contact with all of the schools to monitor the progress and use of this resource. In addition, as this book was produced in conjunction with Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) Rwanda, it is available to be printed and used by new volunteers who are arriving to work in many schools throughout the country. Volunteers will be briefed on the project and we hope that they will continue to promote this book in other primary schools in Rwanda.

It is hoped that in the future 'The Big Book' may become a range of downloadable resources for schools in the developing world, in line with curriculum and with the needs of the students.

We wish to encourage the use of this resource in any school or learning environment that it is needed; please click here to download this resource for free in English or with French explanations and don't hesitate to contact us through our contact details page if you have any questions or comments.