Department Of Basic Education Grade R Workbooks

The Rainbow Workbooks form part of the Department of Basic Education’s range of interventions aimed at improving the performance of South African learners in the first six grades. As one of the priorities of the Government’s Plan of Action, this project has been made possible by the generous funding of the National Treasury. This has enabled the Department to make these workbooks, in all the official languages, available at no cost.

We hope that teachers will find these workbooks useful in their everyday teaching and in ensuring that their learners cover the curriculum. We have taken care to guide the teacher through each of the activities by the inclusion of icons that indicate what it is that the learner should do.

We sincerely hope that children will enjoy working through the book as they grow and learn, and that you, the teacher, will share their pleasure.
We wish you and your learners every success in using these workbooks.

The Department of Basic Education has committed to improving literacy and numeracy skills of learners. To achieve this, the Department has produced a series of workbooks to assist learners in Grade R-9.

What are the workbooks?
Each workbook is made up of 128 easy-to-follow worksheets for listening, reading and writing skills. The workbooks are organised into four worksheets per week, divided over eight weeks per term. All workbooks comply with the latest Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). For each year a learner (Gr1-9) will get two workbooks for each subject. Workbook 1, to use from January to June and Workbook 2, for use from July to December. Grade R learners will receive four books per year, one for each term.
Workbooks are distributed free of charge.

What is the point of the workbooks?
They provide every learner with worksheets to practise the language and numeracy skills they have been taught in class. They are also meant to help teachers track the progress of learners and provide extra support if needed. They are a simple way to structure learning activities for learners.

What happens to the workbooks at the end of the year?
Each and every child will own the workbooks. This means they can take them home and write in them.

Do the workbooks replace textbooks?
No. These are meant to be used with textbooks. They save the teacher from writing exercises and preparing their own worksheets.