The Story of Azra, a Student in Sudan, and The Nardagani Reading Program
Earlier this year, a Sudan teacher, Talitha Lord, reached out to The Nardagani Reading Program. Lord had recently watched Narda Pitkethly’s, CEO and Founder of The Nardagani Reading Program, TEDx Talk “A New Way to Learn to Read English” and felt “inspired.” Indeed, like Talitha, Narda’s TEDx talk has touched many viewers and has now had over 1,000,000 YouTube views.
Here are some email transcripts Talitha Lord sent to The Nardagani Reading Program and Narda. We hope these words may inspire you and help you to want to learn to read the Nardagani way.
3.10.21
Hi There,
I am a young grade one teacher, currently teaching in a small school in Sudan. One of my students is struggling to read. I watched a TEDx Talk on Nardagani on YouTube - I feel inspired! I think this might be the key yo unlock reading for this child.
Thank you,
Talitha Lord
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3.18.21
Dear Narda,
Azra is in my grade 1 class and she is 6 years old, turning 7 in September. She is a very enthusiastic learner and has made very good progress, especially in math. She loves math and always wants to teach it to all the other children. However, she has much less confidence when it comes to reading. She has told me before that she can't read even though when I sit with her I notice that she mostly just struggles with the tricky (non-logical!) sounds.
I am aware that I still have much to learn when it comes to teaching English phonetics. In my first language, Afrikaans, it is very much what you see is what you say. However, like I previously said, your approach to teaching the sounds makes more sense to me than the other techniques I have tried ( which has mostly been tied with memorisation). Very excited to try it out! Thank you very much!
Friendly regards,
Talitha
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3.29.21
Dear Narda,
Just an update to say I am thoroughly enjoying the teachers training. Thank you! It is wonderfully clear. I also watched your free master class. I am aiming to start with the lessons with Azra this week.
Azra is very excited to improve when reading and I am excited to use your material! Printing is a bit restricted so I have printed the things she needs to write on and all the answer sheets, etc. I have saved on my phone to access easily.
Kind regards,
Talitha
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4.4.21
Dear Narda,
Azra really enjoyed the first lesson! The memory match game is brilliant for consolidation and she loved playing it. She now is able to differentiatebetween the long and short sounds using the smile symbol.
Excited to start with the next lesson tomorrow!
Friendly greetings,
Talitha
p.s. The Sudanese lady who cleans the school bent over the laptop to see what I was doing when I was preparing. Made me wonder if you have ever used the program on adults? Thought it would work well too. (Narda answered YES, adults use our program often with great success!)
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4.10.21
Dear Narda,
Azra and I am now on lesson 3. She has one long 45 minute break during, which I normally take her for 20 minutes or so a day. She is always very keen and comes to remind me after she has eaten and played a bit.
We have about another 3 weeks left before school close. However, Azra is always keen for her lessons, no matter how tired she is - I think your interactive activities makes it feel like a game to her!
Okay wow, I can imagine that many adults have benefited from Nardagani. Really a very clever approach - well done!
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend,
Talitha
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4.17.21
Dear Narda,
Hope you are having a good weekend.
Azra has been sick and missed two days of school this week but other than that lessons are going well. As we have covered all the different symbols my plan is now to focus on reading the books, doing left over column sheets and doing the writing practice sheet for the next few lessons. I was a bit worried that the month would be over before we could watch all the videos so I focused on trying to go through all the symbol videos and online activities. She has grasped them very quickly but I do think we need more practice applying them now. Looking forward to it!
As a foundation phase teacher, I feel like I have learned a lot - I have become much more aware of the different sounds words make, how ones mouth changes when you make them and also that reading English is actually really quite an accomplishment for a little 6-year-old. Since many years has passed since I learned to read, one just takes it for granted that it is simple and natural to read English. However, I have learned, there are actually some confusing and "illogical" aspects which are helpful to aware of as a teacher (like the silent letters, etc). Thank you for helping me to realise this and thus become a better teacher.
As for the pretest results -at the start of our lessons when I did the Quick Assessment Reading test with Azra she could not read four of the words in the Pre Primary level (play, run, and here). I was surprised about "and" as it is a very common word that we have used a lot in reading and writing during the previous months.
Friendly regards,
Talitha
Click here to learn more about the Nardagani Reading Program, take our Masterclass, and watch Narda’s TEDx talk, “A New Way to Learn to Read English.”
Talitha and Azra.