According to a National Assessment of Educational Progress report, most American school children have mastered reading and writing fundamentals without learning how to analyze, evaluate, and extend ideas they read and write about. To address this "surface understanding" problem, the report recommends literacy programs aimed at high risk…

This book for beginning readers focuses on a South African woman named MaMkhize, who has no money to pay the rent or buy food because no matter how much she cries and pleads, her husband spends all the money on drinking at the "shebeen." She asks the "sangoma" for help. Together, they plan a clever trick to help stop her…

This book for beginning readers tells the story of a South African priest and his wife who are ashamed when their daughter tells them she is going to have a baby. They refuse to have anything to do with her when she is pregnant. However, when the baby comes, everything changes and they come to accept and love the baby. Large black and white…

This book for beginning readers highlights Robert Mazibuko, the "Tree Man," who spent his life teaching people how to enrich the soil and plant vegetables and trees. Born in South Africa in 1904, he lived on a farm, learning to work with livestock, raise crops, and share with the community. In college, his professor of agriculture…

This publication contains the stories of seven African-American students in the literacy class at the Council for Senior Citizens in Warrenton, North Carolina. The stories were inspired by photographs selected from photographic books with images of African Americans in familiar settings, particularly rural settings. Autobiographical information…

Discussed is the success of a small university in placing African Americans into medical school and pharmacy school. Described are precollege enrichment programs for mathematics and science that emphasize problem solving, homework, daily quizzes, development of vocabulary and reading skills, peer support groups, role models, and parental…