HAND puppets are an excellent tool to help stimulate the imagination of young minds, mainly because it helps them to experience the magic of story book heroes turning into real life, tangible, relatable characters . This in turn helps to create a love for reading.
With the above serving as strong motivation, Asja Strydom, a Grade 3 educator and head of department at Despatch Preparatory School as well as secretary of the Eastern Cape Literacy Association of South Africa (LITASA) decided to start with the production of hand puppets as part of the school’s “Literacy Revolution.”
“Let’s face it, school reading can be boring. Children sometimes do not understand books, they are not involved. They do not want to be part of the story. But hand puppets have a massive impact. The moment you bring a story to life with these puppets … magic happens,” Asja Strydom explained.
In 2019 Strydom’s teaching skills were acknowledged by the Department of Education when she was announced as the best Grade R teacher in the district as well as in the Eastern Cape.
“The children believe in the puppets, even when they see it’s actually you talking. They engage with, and become part of the story. The children don’t take their eyes off the puppet; it is as good as if it was alive.”
Strydom said the hand puppet project started after LITASA had sent the school a donation of books which, as part of Literacy Day (September 8) had to be donated to pre-schools in need of extra reading books.
“We donated the books to Lekker Bekkies in Daleview. The owner then asked for ideas on how to stimulate the children’s imagination whilst reading stories.
“I immediately thought: what better way to let the characters from a story book become alive than with hand puppets?”
Strydom contacted LITASA and requested financial assistance to acquire the necessary material for the making of hand puppets. LITASA agreed and so the production started.
“I chatted to the student teachers at our school as I thought it would be a lovely idea for them to get involved within the community, helping to raise the levels of literacy.
“They were ecstatic and at the end other staff members also joined in to help create the hand puppets.
“It looked like a craft shop. The teachers and admin staff were enjoying themselves and created the most amazing characters. Each hand puppet also had to be named and given a persona of its own,” said Strydom.
Madeléne Sachse, principal at Despatch Preparatory School, said: “The staff had a wonderful afternoon together, creating all sorts of designs and characters for the schools in Reservoir Hills and Daleview. The project forms part of our ‘Literacy Revolution’ campaign which the school and staff are very passionate about.
“Through this Literacy Revolution we want children to get interested in reading, to develop a love for reading and to win them over to be readers forever.”
This project underlines what Nobel prize winner Albert Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire word and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
- Local pre-schools wishing to join Despatch Preparatory’ s Literacy Revolution and receive support with hand puppets can contact the school at 041 933 2544.
