OPINION: Addressing the literacy crisis in South African schools
Reading to Learn is one methodology which provides a text-based grammar (which CAPS proposes) and supports learners to read and write the texts they encounter in their different learning areas.
Schools have just reopened and the hopes of both parents and learners will be optimistic given the news of improved matric results for 2022. However, year by year only 55% of learners reach matric, a dropout rate of 45%. This is a national disaster as 40% of youth get no school leaving qualification and 40% of 18-24 year olds are not employed or in education or training.
There are two interrelated reasons for this crisis. The first is that the 2016 and 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Studies (PIRLS) revealed that nearly 80% of South African Grade 4 learners cannot read with comprehension in their home languages or in English. The ultimate aim of schooling is to enable matriculants to independently learn from reading across a range of learning areas. The focus in the first three years of schooling (Foundation Phase) should be to develop learners’ ability to read with understanding at age-appropriate levels, as preparation for subsequent phases leading towards independent reading. These figures show that this is not happening in the Foundation Phase, and from Grade 4 learners encounter all their subjects in English, a language they do not understand.
The second reason is that the curriculum is based on the assumption that, after three years in the Foundation Phase, all learners are independent readers, which is not the case. From Grade 4, there is no provision in the curriculum for teaching reading. The complexity of the texts learners face in the higher grades increases up the school system. So, if leaners cannot read for meaning by Grade 4, and there is no space in the curriculum to teach reading, it is no wonder that 45% of learners drop out before they reach matric.
There is an overwhelming emphasis on decoding in the Foundation Phase with the children learning to ‘bark at print’ with little comprehension. Teachers need to be trained to work with texts and incorporate the phonics and decoding skills in the contexts of texts, with the emphasis on reading for meaning.
The other pressing question is what do we do about those 80 % of learners from Grade 4 and upwards, who are not literate and unable to learn from reading? The task cannot be done by language teachers alone. The CAPS document states that all teachers must be language teachers. It would be more effective if teachers across the curriculum are trained to be literacy teachers in methodologies that enable them to integrate teaching learners the content of texts in their specific subjects, with how to read and write those texts.
Reading to Learn is one methodology which provides a text-based grammar (which CAPS proposes) and supports learners to read and write the texts they encounter in their different learning areas.
There are other methodologies, and NGOs in the Ugu district working in the field of literacy. It would be good to get a meeting together of the Ugu, DBE, NGOs, teachers, schools, teacher unions and business.
MIKE HART
(hartm@lantic.net)
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