Finding the plot in South African reading education (original) (raw)
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES
The research discussed in this article investigated the acquisition of reading skills by Grade 1 learners who are English Second Language (ESL) speakers in South African classrooms. A questionnaire was used for data collection and both quantitative and qualitative data were obtained. Issues that arose from the quantitative data were the class size, the number of ESL learners in a class and the variety in competence in English of the ESL learners. From the qualitative date the following themes which influenced the acquisition of reading by ESL learners became evident: a lack of vocabulary influences comprehension, the influence of the sound system of the English language, auditory perception, parents and the home environment and the socioeconomic and sociocultural background of learners.
The road to reading for South African learners: The role of orthographic depth
Learning and Individual Differences, 2014
The study examined profiles of reading skills and cognitive skills for South African children from schools that differed in opacity of medium of instruction. The sample included 122 third graders instructed in Afrikaans (transparent language), 109 in Setswana (transparent), and 127 in English (opaque). The link between cognitive skills (short-term memory and working memory) and reading comprehension was expected to be mediated by phonological awareness, word fluency, text fluency, and vocabulary. Multigroup invariance analyses revealed differences in strength of relations between cognitive skills and reading skills across mediums of instruction. For English, phonological awareness played a smaller and vocabulary a larger role compared to Afrikaans and Setswana, largely in line with theories on orthographic depth and reading; furthermore, predictors of reading comprehension showed weaker interrelations in Afrikaans and Setswana. Our study stresses the need to align reading instruction with orthography.
Still Falling at the First Hurdle: Examining Early Grade Reading in South Africa
South African Schooling: The Enigma of Inequality
This chapter provides an overview of what we know about reading outcomes in South Africa. After an initial survey of some foundational tenets of reading research we show that while reading outcomes in South Africa improved between 2006 and 2011 they have stagnated between 2011 and 2016. The most recent PIRLS study (2016) showed that 78% of Grade 4 children cannot read for meaning in any language. There is nothing inevitable about these results. The knowledge and instructional practices required to teach children to read-as well as the resources needed to do it-are known and well understood internationally, even in highpoverty contexts. We argue that the inequalities evident in the schooling system have their roots in unequal life chances doled out at birth and consolidated through differential reading trajectories. Moving beyond the 'comprehension iceberg' we document what lies beneath these dire results. The majority of children have not mastered the basics of decoding in their home language in Grade 1 or 2 making reading for meaning or pleasure unlikely. We advocate for an approach focusing on early reading success and ensuring that teachers know how to teach reading, that that they have the materials to do so, that children have ready access to books and that reading outcomes are assessed annually. * The title Falling at the first hurdle was that of a research report by Taylor (1989) on literacy in South African schools. That we face similar challenges with similar diagnoses 30 years on is reason enough to reproduce Taylor's incisive title, with a slight modification.
Reading is very important, but...: Taking stock of South African student teachers’ reading habits
Reading & Writing, 2014
This article explores the contradiction between student teachers’ acknowledgement of the importance of reading and their actual personal reading habits, and by doing so, attempts to dig below the surface and ‘take stock’ of future teachers’ attitudes towards reading at a private tertiary institution in Durban, South Africa. The rationale is that without fully understanding student teachers’ own attitudes towards reading, the challenges of literacy and reading in the classroom cannot be fully addressed. It does this through a survey of 171 student teachers that investigated how much or how little they read for pleasure, what texts they read for pleasure (fiction, non-fiction, magazines, newspapers, online), how many of them are engaged readers of extended texts (fiction and non-fiction) and finally, the role books and reading play in their lives. It emerged that student teachers’ positive attitude towards reading and their apparent understanding of its importance starkly contradicted...
2013
The aim of this study was to explore the reading life histories of three Intermediate Phase (IP) language educators, and how their histories influence their teaching, as part of a larger University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) reading project. Using the life history research approach, the manner in which the participants learnt to read at home before starting school, in Primary and High School and how they were trained to teach reading was examined. By observing their lessons and interviewing them, the effects that their experiences have had on their current teaching methods and their readiness to implement the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) in their phase in 2013, was explored. Research has shown that the literacy levels in South Africa (SA) are reason for great concern. There seems to be an overemphasis on decoding skills with limited exposure to all aspects of comprehension in the lower grades. Thus SA learners struggle to cope as they go on to higher grades where they are expected to read for meaning and read to learn. These problems may be associated with the inadequate training and limited knowledge of teaching reading of many SA educators. Educators who participated in this study seem to define reading as primarily decoding text to speech and view comprehension as a separate entity. In addition to this they do not have a full understanding of the complexities of the comprehension process. By exploring the participants' experiences of learning to read, their training in teaching reading, and current classroom practices, the effects of the former two were visible on the latter. This study contributes to the larger research project as the participants' misconceptions and preconceptions created by their own mediocre schooling, substandard and outdated training and inadequate continuous development, were analysed so these could be addressed in workshops designed by the UKZN reading project team. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………...i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………...ii DECLARATION…………………………………………………………………….iii TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………...iv LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES………………………………………………..vii LIST OF ACRONYMS……………………………………………………………....viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 9 2.4 Research Approach 9 2.5 Data Collection Methods 2.5.1 Interviews 2.5.2 Observations 2.6 Piloting of the data collection instruments 2.7 Data Analysis and Interpretation 2.8 Sample 2.9 Reliability and Validity 2.10 Limitations of the study v 2.11 Ethical Considerations 2.12 Summary CHAPTER THREE: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 3.1 Introduction 3.2 What is reading? 3.3 Reading in the First Additional Language 3.4 Bottom-up models of reading 3.4.1 Applications of bottom-up models 3.4.2 Critiques of bottom-up models 3.5 Top-down models of reading 3.5.1 Applications of top-down models 3.5.2 Critiques of top-down models 3.6 Interactive models of reading
Reading & Writing
Background: South Africa’s long-standing reading crisis is well recognised. At various stages since 2000, national government has presented the inculcation of a culture of reading as a solution to this crisis.Objectives: This article critically interrogated the term ‘culture of reading’ as used in national government discourse with reference to basic education. By tracing the patterns of use of the term since 2000, it aimed to show the shifts and continuities in the government’s understanding of the term ‘culture of reading’ and how this has shaped the reading landscape.Method: Drawn from a corpus of 331 texts, a sample of 58 texts produced by national government was analysed. Employing discourse and thematic analysis, key themes were extrapolated and their relation to reading within South Africa was explored.Results: The government’s call for a culture of reading occurs predominantly in response to poor literacy results and at launches of campaigns and strategies focused on address...
Teachers’ perceptions of reading instruction in selected primary schools in the Eastern Cape
Reading & Writing, 2017
Background: There is a general outcry that too many South African Foundation Phase (Grades 1–3) teachers do not know how to teach reading and are currently teaching reading in an ad hoc, unsystematic way.Objectives: In response to this, this study explored the Foundation Phase teachers’ perceptions of their role in teaching reading. The focus was on the relevance of the initial training, awareness of reading strategies and how these strategies were reflected in their classroom practice.Method: The study was qualitative in nature and a case study design was followed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine teachers who were purposively selected from three public schools. Content analysis was used to analyse the data.Results: Regarding the initial training programme, teachers received at tertiary institutions, the findings of the study showed that the majority of teachers were not adequately prepared to teach reading and to deal with learners who experience problems in rea...
READING COMPREHENSION IN SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOLS: ARE TEACHERS GETTING IT, AND GETTING IT RIGHT
Much research exists about South African learners' low literacy and numeracy levels and about poorly performing schools. In contrast, there are far fewer detailed descriptions of instructional practices and what teachers are actually doing in their classrooms, and far less evidence exists of in-depth research attempts to understand in what way and why teachers may experience problems with the teaching of reading literacy, particularly reading comprehension. This article aims to contribute to narrowing that gap by reviewing recent South African research on classroom comprehension instruction and obtaining information from teachers about how they perceive themselves as readers, what their teaching context is, what they claim to be doing about reading in their classrooms, and to match these responses with ANA results at their schools. Data were obtained through a quantitative questionnaire from 159 teachers at 30 schools across three provinces. The results show that many teachers are not themselves immersed in rich reading practices, many teachers claim to be doing more than is reflected in their schools' literacy results, and in general teachers don't seem to have a clear understanding of reading concepts, reading development and reading methodology.
Reading to Learn: A literature review within a South African context
Academic literacy development within the secondary schooling system in South Africa has reached crisis proportions, with a large number of students exiting the system unable to function adequately within the tertiary sector or labour market. Attempts to remedy this crisis by introducing curriculum reform over the past few years have yielded little success, with universities having to take on the literacy problem by offering a variety of remedial programmes to ensure that students are equipped to access learning and succeed at their studies. Research shows that most literacy intervention programs at universities appear to favour a more traditional approach to English academic language development by focusing on grammatical rules, sentence structure, spelling and punctuation. This bottom-up approach does not necessarily equip students with the skills needed to write coherent and cohesive extended pieces of writing as required by university assessment processes. For this reason, the Reading to Learn (RtL) methodology was chosen to be implemented within a writing module at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and within selected Grade 11 classes in the Winelands District in an attempt to find an alternative approach to academic literacy development. The purpose of this article is to offer a comprehensive synthesis of some of the theoretical assumptions of RtL as well as its practical implementation before embarking on an evaluative study of this methodology in future papers. In doing so, this article offers a brief discussion on academic literacy pedagogies and situates RtL within these frameworks. This is followed by a synthesis of the practical implementation of RtL and a discussion of the works of Halliday (1989, 1996), Vygotsky (1978) and Bernstein (1990, 1996) which have had an influence on the development of RtL.
Reading & Writing
This article evaluates South African research from two annotated bibliographies on reading in African languages at home language level (2004-2017) and South African research on teaching reading in English as a first additional language (2007-2018). It also aims to provide guidelines for addressing these weaknesses. Methods: Examples of 70 quantitative and qualitative research studies from the annotated bibliographies were critically analysed, identifying key weaknesses in the research as a whole and examples of excellent quality. Results: Weaknesses evident in the research reviewed, suggested greater consideration is needed to lay sound methodological foundations for quality literacy research. Three methodological issues underlying local literacy research that require greater attention are research design, selection and use of literature and research rigour. High-quality research examples are referenced but, for ethical reasons, examples of what we consider to be flawed research are described generally. Guidelines are offered for addressing these pitfalls that, in our view, contribute to research of limited quality. Since many universities require submission of a journal article as a requirement for postgraduate students, preparation for such an article is considered. Conclusion: While this article is not intended to be a comprehensive guide, we hope it is useful to supervisors, postgraduate students and early career researchers currently undertaking, or planning to undertake, literacy research and to writing for publication.