Teaching Methods to Support the Teaching of Reading in the Foundation Phase Class: A Case Study of Schools around Capricorn South District, Limpopo, South Africa (original) (raw)
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Technium Social Sciences Journal
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African Journal of Disability, 2022
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Reading & Writing
According to Le Cordeur (2010a), it is important to identify and address reading challenges such as poor reading comprehension, inadequate reading fluency, a lack of vocabulary, and a negative attitude towards reading as early as possible in the early years of schooling. In addition, literature has shown that many FP teachers do not know how to teach reading. They are currently teaching reading in an ad hoc, unsystematic way because of a lack of adequate professional development in effective strategies to address English learners' literacy development (Cekiso 2017; Le Cordeur 2010b; Pretorius & Machet 2004; Taylor 2015; Van Staden 2011). Particularly in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape, Tshuma and Le Cordeur (2019) found that teachers had difficulties teaching in English due to their own lack of proficiency in the language. Of relevance to this study is the lack of access to appropriate reading resources in terms of language and genre, lack of reading opportunities, and an absence of a reading culture, which continue to disadvantage poor communities. Background: This article reports on a responsive extensive reading programme (ERP), involving Grade 3 learners at two primary schools in the Eastern Cape over a duration of 20 weeks. Objectives: The sociocultural perspective of learning guided the implementation of the ERP which aimed at providing learners with opportunities to read books for pleasure in their preferred language. Method: Learners had a choice to talk about their reading in isiXhosa, their home language, or English, which is their first additional language. In supporting the long-term goal of being bilingual, learners were encouraged to see themselves as emergent bilinguals who have reasons to use both languages as young scholars and in future. Results: Data collected through a post-intervention questionnaire, learners' reading logs and observations illuminated interesting findings which show that learners benefited from the ERP. Conclusion: The benefits of participating in the ERP were observed in the learners' acquisition of new knowledge (cognitive benefits), transformation in their attitude towards reading (affective benefits), and they began to take agency of their reading (social benefits). Contribution: This study demonstrates the cognitive, affective, and social benefits of introducing learners to reading for pleasure as early as in the Foundation Phase.