How this Programme came about is the reason for its success.  I home-schooled my own two primary school children for a year and, in searching for Afrikaans material, was frustrated and disappointed – and so were they.  So I started writing my own stories and based the written work thereon.  My first love is creative writing and the stories came flowing out!  I based them all on a character called ‘Stoute Neels’ and ensured every story was amusing and relevant to our South African children.  Through the repeated reading of the same reader, I noticed an almost immediate improvement in their fluency and pronunciation and an upswing in their confidence – the vocabulary was ‘going in  and sticking’!  In such a pleasant  way, too.  They also loved that the written work was all based on the story they were reading, making it relevant and fun.  Within a few short weeks, my children were actually beginning to communicate in Afrikaans.  When my son went to Maritzburg College the following year, his Afrikaans was so good that he was placed in the A set for Afrikaans – along with all the mother-tongue speakers.  His comment: “I know so many words, it’s easy to work out what the sentences mean”.  So to teach vocabulary, you can’t beat this system – parrot-learning lists of words just doesn’t work as well.

This has been confirmed again and again over the years: parents, teachers and children alike just love the ‘Stoute Neels’ books.

To help you, there is a translation of every story into English and a detailed guide.  Parents, take note: if you child’s Afrikaans is not yet up to standard, I recommend starting a grade below to build confidence – you want them to say, “This is easy!” and then the battle is won.  I started my daughter 2 years back!