This was an informative, brilliantly presented course. We were enthralled, educated and entertained. This is, as a speech therapist, the system I have always wanted. THANK-YOU, THANK-YOU, THANK-YOU!

Extremely riveting – a fabulous new approach to the teaching of reading, handwriting and spelling. Invaluable information! Thoroughly enjoyable. Thankyou.

Wow! A wonderful presentation. I can’t believe how a decade of teaching was changed in the first half hour. Can’t wait to get into class and try it!

Most encouraging course, thank you! This could solve the biggest problem we have which is expecting second and third language children to manage English as home language without having the basics!

It was a wonderful, eye-opening experience. I am left feeling guilty about 28 years of teaching 26 letters in the alphabet. I will be so grateful if the educators from the school would buy into the new way of life. Thank you, you’re an inspiration! This will solve the reading problem in our country.

It was a privilege to be on the course. I found it exciting, dynamic, inter-active and relevant. Can’t wait to put it into practice. Have been teaching in a lot of these ways for years, but this puts it all together and gives it a “hook” to hang it all on.

A great course with a wonderful presenter. I am looking forward to starting this with my children. Reading and spelling will start making more sense to my children, especially the weaker ones! Loved every minute – time does indeed fly when you are having fun! Alan, I think this is fantastic.

Excellent, enjoyed every minute of this course. Learnt so much in two days! Thank you, work well done. Keep up your positive enthusiasm.

Very informative. Thoroughly enjoyed presentation – kept our attention at all times. Think THRASS will be a very useful tool and method, to use for teaching hard of hearing children (Phoneme Machine). Huge progress and inspiration for the teaching of reading and spelling.

The course is very thorough and informative. The skills for teachers and learners were very clearly explained. The course presenter ensured the material was delivered with enthusiasm and took time to ensure it was understood. A lovely course.

Brilliant, exciting, informative presentation. Thanks Alan – I had a good laugh because I thought Letterland was it! I have learnt a lot and am totally enlightened and informed because of your excellent presentation. We will definitely implement THRASS at school.

Fantastic, very inspiring. Lots of light bulb moments! Grateful for all the resource material.

A totally new outlook on the teaching of language. I feel motivated and enthusiastic to start implementing THRASS in my class as soon as possible. Thank you to Alan for a life enriching course. You are passionate about your “work” and it rubs-off. Thank you for your willingness, time and energy.

Superb! Thanks.

A great course. Enjoyed presentation – lively, interesting and full of character. Love the contents/information – believe in the program – pupils should improve and progress greatly in literacy. Would love to have a follow-up day 2 months down the line for question, problem solving etc. updating etc. Enjoyed your accent. Be blessed!

Thank you for an excellent presentation. I have learnt a great deal, and it will be of great value in our education system. We will introduce this programme into our system next year. I thoroughly enjoyed your course. You have a wealth of knowledge that you so unselfishly share with others.

Very exciting, scary how we have been teaching Gr. 1-2. Will definitely change to THRASS!

An excellent course! Most enjoyable! Thank you very much! Not many of my pupils have attended Nursery School but those who have, have done Letterland as I do. Will do our best to convince S.M.T. to get involved with THRASS. Thank you once again.

I totally enjoyed the fact that I can teach confidently with the little I know. I learned so much but wished it was not a crash program – but longer with much practice, by the audience.

An excellent eye-opening way to teach the English language. Thankyou.

Well presented. Widened my horizons. Well done to the presenter.

Excellent presentation – a great deal to absorb but with stories and practical examples, this was made easier – THANK YOU. It would be wonderful if the teaching aids could be locally produced to make them more affordable to all.

This course is so helpful to me. Everything is wonderful. Is good for two days. Hoping that it is going to help me and my school a lot. As we already doing at my school. It is so much important for the Grade 1 we started last year. Thank you.

What a lively and enthusiastic presentation. Thank you for empowering me to make a difference to the children that I’ll be teaching. I look forward to using THRASS – it just makes so much sense!

Well done. At last someone has had the guts to crack the whip on a topic that has caused confusion for both educators and learners. Great concept and content, well delivered. A LOT of material – it would be quite hard to decide how to approach this from a practical point of view – all, nothing or something in between? Well delivered. Thanks, Alan.

This was brilliant! On Tuesday we exposed to the programme and was in contact with English phonics for the first time. Thank you. Being in an Afrikaans school only speaking Afrikaans and only doing an additional language in English, this will bring light to dark Africa. We must talk again on the Afrikaans system but being only in sound system you got me thinking. Thank you for investing in South Africa. It will be worthwhile.

I teach high school children (Grades 9, 11 and 12). Your course was an absolute delight. I am empowered now to do remedial work – something I couldn’t do before as I have never been exposed to teaching reading, writing, spelling from the start. Thankyou.

An excellent presentation! Thank you for opening up a ‘new world’ of graphemes and phonemes. The English language seems much easier to understand and I can’t wait to explore everything I’ve learnt on my own and share it with my pupils. Well done!

Excellent course, just sorry not more teachers form the school could be here! Thankyou.

Excellent! I have learnt a lot about the teaching of phonics.

Definitely learned things I previously did not know. Had great fun learning, visualising, practising, and being educated. A great presentation, one of the best I have ever attended. Aside from using it on my literacy students, I have already started using it on my pre-school son. A big thank you and may God bless you, as you are going to be responsible for helping many, many South Africans in life and their futures.

Presentation, excellent. Going to apply it to my subject, Afrikaans second language. Very informative and stimulating. May god bless you and your team with your wonderful work.

A course I truly wish to use with my students and to help them and myself with our understanding of English and her nuances. Thankyou Alan, as you have made me realise that I always excused my own spelling errors and through this programme you are giving me the chance to better myself and my students in the long run.

Thank you so much, your energy, sense of humour and obvious passion for the system is an inspiration to us ALL. It is definitely the most sensible phonics/language programme I have come across.

I used to study educational psychology where the contents was taught, but I didn’t understand it, at the time. After attending this course I will be able to both teach and do assessments. I found the workshop valuable and entertaining at the same time.

A really interesting and valuable course. As a remedial teacher, it has helped to “tidy up the phonics room”. The presentation was really lively and entertaining, which helps the retention of information. The equipment is wonderful, good quality and durable. Thankyou.

This programme is marvellous. You’ve clearly put much effort into designing both idea (philosophy) and material. I commend you on that. I appreciate that the material is “international” and therefore universally applicable. As a presenter you were inspirational and dynamic. Would’ve been great if we could have bought or ordered material/resources right here because then we would’ve bought them and used them while still highly driven and information fresh. Waiting may cause a bit of a decrease in momentum (also our school wants us to present the programme to them – sell it to them – difficult without your resources). We’ll use the wonderful stuff you have given us. Good luck! This is great!

I enjoyed an inspiring two days and I am very keen to become more involved and to implement THRASS. I can see the value of the THRASS method but I realise that I have to do a lot of brushing up on my own knowledge of phonics. I am nervous of trying to teach an old dog new tricks but I trust that there will be support.

I found this course quite revolutionary as I hope to make a difference in the literacy skills of the pupils. I have been teaching English at High School level for over 30 years and I have observed that learners are becoming increasingly poor readers. These learners are finding the entire school curriculum almost beyond them. My school has an almost black population and the learners really struggle with English as it is not their home language.

It was an intense two day course. I discovered that I’m not such a bad speller. I feel more confident to teach phonics and reading. Thankyou.

Excellent presentation! Thoroughly enjoyable and informative. Look forward to implementing the THRASS system at our school. It really is amazing. I know that it is going to help our learners. Thank you to Wits. And Dr. Place for bringing Alan Davies to South Africa and making us aware of THRASS and its success.

Most enlightening, and a very enjoyable two days spent learning about what to our school is a new method of teaching reading. I will have so much to tell the staff about on Monday. Will definitely be incorporating many of the new ideas I have been given.

Fantastic experience! Learned a lot. Will definitely be using ideas as a parent and teacher. Will encourage more staff members from our school to attend next course. Would love to see this implemented in our school!

Very informative. Something new that can be implemented in schools. The course was rather long, but kept you on your toes. Overall, I enjoyed every bit of it. It was well presented by Alan.

A wonderful course – very motivating and inspiring. One’s never too old to learn – learning to rap just before retiring! Wonderful presentation! – I feel privileged to have been able to be part of this course.

Wonderful breakthrough in the teaching of Reading and Spelling. Can’t wait to apply it in the classroom. Mr. Davies was a dynamic facilitator. He is an inspiration to make a difference. Bravo!

Excellent. Very informative. Well presented. Good resource material. Lots of helpful tips. Plenty of examples. Will be wonderful when the “15 Minutes a Day” is published. Well done and thank you!

Very enlightening, huge difference to the standard way we have taught phonics and reading etc. Vibrant lecturer makes a difference to the presentation of the course. Sense of humour breaks the seriousness. Material used, of good quality and helpful. Has been impressive and stimulating. Dying to try it, just have reservations about costs for a school of 1200 children.

Enjoyed the course. Inspirational. Makes so much sense. Very impressed with this fresh approach. Can’t wait to start this new approach.

An excellent, well-presented course. Very informative and well worth putting into practice in our classrooms and schools. Pity we did not use this method when we did our training. It is difficult to “change” old habits. Thankyou for sharing.

Wonderful. Informative. Mr. Davies is a dynamic, enthusiastic presenter. I felt that I have learnt a great deal of new information as well as feeling empowered to try new/other techniques in my classroom. Information well presented.

A dynamic and humorous presentation gave relief from a good (but rather complicated by comparison with other teaching methods) course. Thank you for the resources to take home. Excellent visual material, charts, video etc. Good interactive lecturer. I don’t think I have enough to teach confidently yet, enough to move on to perhaps implementing it over a period of time – with support.

A well presented course leaving me with a lot to think about. A potentially excellent programme with far reaching possibilities. Certainly worth investigating further. The presenter is passionate about his work and this is definitely contagious. Thankyou.

Excellent! Thank you for empowering us to empower our learners. I like the realistic approach to dealing with all the basic components of language development. It is relevant, comprehensive and basically simple. You are to be congratulated for having the dream and the insight and the courage and determination to carry it through.

Wonderful presentation. Clearly explained. Easily understood. Motivated to start trying this method of teaching, spelling and reading. This has made the understanding of phonics much clearer! Thankyou.

It was exciting and I will definitely feel more confident teaching phonics etc. in the classroom. I am excited to start using it. The course was a bit too long and therefore difficult to absorb everything, but thank you for inspiring me!

Thank you so much for sharing your programme with us. You have inspired and excited me about teaching THRASS. Thanks for all the beautiful resources! They are very cool.

Thanks for an awesome course! I really appreciate all the resources and I can’t wait to try it all out. Your enthusiasm for THRASS is inspirational.

Well done Alan! A fantastic course. I’m really looking forward to sharing my new knowledge with my class. I’m confident that my weak readers and spellers will soon be on top of the class. Thanks for a worthwhile course.

Excellent! Outstanding, captivating presenter. Makes a lot of sense. An excellent approach to teaching literacy skills. Makes a lot of sense (repetition). Alan has a lot of passion for THRASS, which comes across in his presentation and it very contagious. A really worthwhile course!

A new approach. Superb, entertaining, skilful presenter. Liberating for learners and educators. Superb organisation. Definitely very worthwhile. Thankyou.

What a revolutionary approach. A lot to absorb in two days.

Well done! You presented well, very entertaining. Your know your stuff! This is the answer to all our children’s phonic problems.

An excellent way of teaching reading and spelling skills. Well presented and I enjoyed the stories and ‘drama’. Some repetition (sp?).

Dynamically presented, comprehensive coverage of language skills. A lot of information for two days.

Brilliant! I wish we were taught this way at school. I would like to implement this method at school, but wish the whole staff at school had the same training. Presenter, Mr. Davies helped me change my outlook/approach to literacy. Sense of humour was entertaining. Thank you so much.

The course was very interesting and opened my eyes to the possibilities of helping children to read. However, as a secondary school teachers, I found it difficult to grasp at first. I think I would have benefited more from a longer course or a course specifically aimed at secondary school teachers who have never taught the basics of reading and have never been trained in how to teach reading.

Worthwhile and well-presented. Excellent learning materials provided excellent knowledge. Well done!

Excellent presentation. Have seen benefits to ‘spelling strugglers’ – great improvements. Variety of excellent resources and now know how to use them. Excited to try in the classroom. Thankyou.

Excellent speaker now feel far more positive about THRASS, than I did when I arrived. A very worthwhile course – time well spent. Excited about it. Many thanks.

Super ideas. Well presented. Two days is perfect. I don’t think I could cope with five days. Could you not organise a South African distributor? It would make it easier to purchase stuff. Thank you.

Very informative, interactive and good subject knowledge gained. Could make it a longer course (maybe three days). Leaving with confidence and (keenness) enthusiasm. Hope we will do the THRASS implementation justice at our schools.

Brilliant presentation – well done Alan! It sounds like a plan but I withhold my judgement ‘till I’m able to put this into practice and see the results for myself. In so doing, I promise to be a good facilitator and empower the children with the resources and skills involved in using THRASS to fulfil the objectives of THRASS. Thankyou.

Thankyou – great!

Very interesting! Didn’t know much about “phonics”, but do now! Will start saving and fundraising for charts and stuff! Really enjoyed it!

Very logical and empowering. I hope there will be follow-up courses!

Excellent! My only regret is that I could not attend a course like this years ago.

Very, very informative and interesting. Thanks for shedding light on some burning issues. Cannot wait to implement and evaluate the effect on learners. If all educators could do the course as compulsory, it could only benefit children and lessen illiteracy among learners. Thanks for a lively presentation!

Very enlightening and would like to start it at school immediately. I would like to know what support we’ll have should we experience problems. Thank you very much Alan, you were a great presenter.

Very good and interesting. Learnt some very interesting points to take back to school.

Outstanding. Would like the whole staff to go on training. Thankyou.

Thankyou! What an excellent course! Refreshing! Has taken off the blinkers. Can’t wait to go back and start implementing. Well done! Very entertaining presenter.

Excellent course! Thank you for being such an empowering, positive and motivating presenter! This approach to reading, spelling and writing has opened my eyes! Thank you for empowering me as an educator. You made the course interesting and humorous – making my learning easier!

It was a very energetic course. I enjoyed it. I now know how to do it in my class. Thankyou.

Fantastic! I am very excited about going back and starting to solve our problem (whole school) of illiterate children. Also, the problem of teachers teaching English on the pattern of Afrikaans. Excellent presentation. Thankyou.

Well done. Thank you for the wonderful course. Please plan follow-up courses and more information.

Was excellent. Learnt a lot through fun. Just a pity the course was so short. I now know more (a lot more), than I did before but feel I still need to learn more. Thank you for everything.

I found it very informative and excellent .I am very eager to start this programme. Maybe the course should be longer (over more days) as it is a lot of information to take in. Thank you for sharing this with South Africa.

It was excellent. I learned a lot and the learners are going to benefit from it. Thankyou.

A really interesting and well experienced course. Thankyou.

A very good presentation. Excellent! Two days was not enough to digest everything. Alan made it very interesting and entertaining with great ideas that I could pass on to my learners. Thankyou.

Absolutely delightful. Alan was very, very dynamic in this presentation. Alan has imparted valuable knowledge I neglected in my teaching. Have thoroughly enjoyed the educational, dramatic and inspiring information. Humour was most enlightening. Thankyou.

Wonderful, energetic presenter – full of enthusiasm! Uplifting! Thankyou. I have been teaching that there are different sounds but its great to have sounds (condensed) into charts.

Very informative. Excellent visual aids. Extremely thorough. Lots to absorb.

Positive experience. Well presented. A great deal of information to absorb. Excellent visual aids. Thank you very much.

The course was outstanding. I am looking forward to implementing it in the classroom. Alan Davies is dynamic and has done a fabulous job. Well done.

Looking forward to implementing great new ideas to equip children in whole literacy approach. Most enlightening presentation. Many thanks.

Very interesting and informative. Please know when to stop talking – only able to digest sounds in a specific time. Valuable. Thanks.

Most enjoyable. I can see a place for it in my classroom especially with children who find reading and spelling difficult. I can’t wait to try it in my extra lessons in phonics. Many thanks.

An eye-opener to see that what I’ve been teaching in my class is so limiting for them. I like the fact that you stress that THRASS is about teaching children to be literate, i.e. whole-language approach.

Superb, intense course. Excellent presentation. Fantastic research and resources. Thankyou.

A wonderful experience! Thank you for your quality time. It is amazing that this is being put into practice in the Kwena Basin – such a ‘needy’ area. Now I know what graphs, digraphs, trigraphs and quads are in a word. Articulation of letters is so important – I feel language educated as well. Thankyou.

Very interesting and informative. A good approach to whole language teaching. Easier to have one system as opposed to different ones.

Entertaining – concentration was maintained. Great to have all the resources and support. Really need a manual to show how to integrate whole system (all the skills together) at various levels (grade and age).

Excellent and inspiring and very informative. Thank you.

Well presented curse.

Thank you for a new, dynamic approach to teaching reading and spelling. I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and hope to implement this with all the children.

Thank you so much for such a valuable course! I think this is the way to go. My autistic/hearing impaired, dev. delayed child has been introduced to this program and I can see how it works. He is able to identify all letters/names, pics. etc (after three months!). If he can do it, I believe anyone can. Am very excited by your method and can’t wait to begin applying it.

A big thank you for an excellent presentation

Excellent! A great whole brain presentation covering all areas and development, integrating many perspectives; theories; areas of expertise and difficulties. Very energetic, enthusiastic presentation – THANK YOU! Alan really “lives-out” or demonstrates what he believes in/skills necessary to teach/to transfer information to people. Lots of trainer-support materials to go “play around” with . Thanks! A project worthwhile.

Excited animated presentation. Large volume of information covered and referred to each day. Wide range of materials brightly illustrated and easy to read and see in auditorium. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole presentation and am dying to get started in the classroom. Thankyou!

A most interesting, passionate (amusing) presentation. THRASS draws everything together in a common-sense way that is motivating and fun, while an excellent tool for some serious learning.