Dames 1968

Dames, J. J. 1968.Keyword pictures for African literacy primers. Referred to as a research "paper" within the book. Nairobi, Kenya: Literacy Centre of Kenya. 44 pages.

Features 70 keyword pictures for African literacy primers. Uses the Roman alphabet phonetically--"one letter for each significantly different voice sound." Is a "teach yourself" book, assuming untrained helpers will teach nonliterates to read. The keyword (from a key sentence) introduces one letter or symbol to teach the sound of the new letter.

Author tested eight untrained voluntary Kisii literacy helpers (men between the ages of 20--25 with 8--10 years of education) to determine the type of pictures they could understand. Describes what they said about what they saw. Describes how students can readily identify and differentiate similar objects (horse, mule, and donkey) in real life, but cannot readily distinguish them in drawings. States that while more research is required, the choice of a keyword is restricted by the limited ability of the pupil and instructor to interpret pictures correctly.

Did a simple test of SIL students' (as well as evaluator) ability to interpret drawings in the book. It was readily apparent that it was difficult to specifically interpret pictures of objects from an unfamiliar culture.

• Bibliography module: Dames 1968
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): D
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 18 May 1999

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