Stories, Tips & Insights
Literacy, mental health, parenting, and the magic of reading — from our team to yours.
1 Apr 2026
The quiet emergency: why African children are reading less
Literacy rates are improving. Reading culture is not. These are different problems, and for two decades, policy has been solving the wrong one.
2 Apr 2026
What 'reading culture' actually means, and why we keep measuring the wrong thing
Across East Africa, 'reading culture' has become a proxy for 'test performance.' The two are not the same thing — and treating them as equivalent produces schools full of children who have never voluntarily finished a story.
3 Apr 2026
The reluctant reader: who they are, why they stop, and what the research says about getting them back
Most reading interventions are not designed for the child who can read but chooses not to. Understanding the anatomy of reluctance is the first step to changing it.
10 Apr 2026
Reading the gutter: the invisible skill that separates confident readers from struggling ones
The gutter — the white space between comic panels — is where imagination and reality collide to create narrative. It is also where the most important cognitive work in reading happens.
12 Apr 2026
Swahili, English and the bilingual brain: why building a literacy platform in two languages is harder than it looks
A literacy platform that treats bilingual development as straightforward translation is not bilingual. It is lazy. Grace in Eldoret deserves better.
16 Apr 2026
The phygital thesis: why the future of children's reading is a physical book with a digital brain
The physical book is the reading experience. The digital layer is the intelligence that makes the reading experience improve over time. Remove either element and the system degrades.