CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE ON TEACHING EARLY READING IN SOUTH
3.4 T HEMES IN S OUTH A FRICAN R EADING R ESEARCH
3.4.5 Classroom practice
A relatively consistent picture of classroom practice in Foundation Phase reading classrooms in South Africa emerges from the few studies which have attempted to describe it.
Bloch (1996) presents the most detailed description of early literacy classes in South Africa which I encountered while conducting this study. She describes typical classroom interactions where the emphasis is on the teacher giving instructions and eliciting the right answers, often in the form of chanting. She observes a focus on phonics, on reading decontextualised words, a lack of story reading, a lack of playful engagement with language through rhyme, and a lack of literacy activities with meaning to the child's life. She argues that many teachers do not value what children bring to the classroom from their homes and communities, and do not see children as capable of taking initiative in the reading and writing process. Mistakes are seen as the result of not listening properly, rather than part of learning and discovery. There is an emphasis on mechanical skills such as letter formation and neatness (1996, p. 17-19). Teachers, she argues, think of it as 'normal' to teach language as decontextualised bits and as a result tend to explain the difficulties children experience as phonics weaknesses rather than asking about whether what is expected of the children makes any sense to them (1996, p. 22-23). She is concerned that issues about approaches to literacy teaching have been "sidelined" by focusing on which language children should learn in (1996, p. 31). I shall return to Bloch‘s study in the final chapter of this thesis.
Taylor and Vinjevold‘s influential report, Getting Learning Right (1999) records a number of similar classroom practices: lessons are dominated by teacher talk and low level questions;
there is an absence of higher order skill activities such as investigation, understanding
relationships and curiosity; real world examples are often superficially used; there is little group work; little reading and writing is done, and it is rudimentary. Writing is largely confined to one-word answers at the end of the lesson; there is a lot of copying without comprehension; writing whole sentences is rare. This report details the findings of various other studies. One interesting finding by Schollar is that schools spent an average of 4% of their time reading (in Taylor & Vinjevold, 1999, p. 151). Duncan found that discrete reading lessons in initial reading programmes hardly existed in the 1990s. The teaching of reading seems to be "incidental and sporadic rather than a principal focus and outcome of lessons‖ (in Taylor & Vinjevold, 1999, p. 152).
Broom‘s investigation of English reading proficiency of Grade 3 learners attending 20 public schools in Gauteng in 1999 showed that "the performance of L2 English learners was considerably below that of their L1 peers, especially in some schools, which suggests that an early transition to English LOLT may be perpetuating the inequalities of the past" (Broom, 2004, p. 506). A test was specifically designed in collaboration with teachers, with oral and written components. Learners were prepared for the test, familiarising them with pictures and teaching vocabulary they would need to follow instructions. Ex-Department of Education and Training schools (―black‖) and ex-House of Representatives schools (―coloured‖) performed worse than the ex-House of Assembly schools (―white‖) and ex-House of Delegates schools (―indian‖) schools. As all the words and pictures had been pre-taught, it was not just their knowledge of English which caused low performance on reading sub-tests. Broom argued that "It is possible that teacher-centered instructional methods in the classroom may have influenced their performance" (2004, p. 518).
Ramarumo (1996) reports on a study of Grade 1 classrooms in 5 rural schools the Thohoyandou district. She describes a typical reading lesson videoed in this project, which resonates with the findings of this research:
At no time in the reading lesson were pupils given an opportunity to read or handle books;
there was no opportunity to read continuous text. The teacher did not model reading from a book. Pupils had no opportunity to hold a book, nor turn the pages, or follow lines of print in a meaningful context. The glaring inadequacy was that the reading skills drilled during this lesson were not contextualised in terms of a holistic approach to literacy development. (Ramarumo, 1996, p. 347)
Prinsloo's study of preschools in the Cape Town area showed how explicit pedagogy was
"exclusively dedicated to recitation" in these schools (Prinsloo, 2005, p. 144). He notes how
children are involved in various ―naming practices‖ (2005, p. 147), such as reciting the alphabet (―A is for…‖) without attempt to explain meanings of words or to show the letters of the alphabet in other contexts.
Attaching names to specific things, located in lists probably has some use, but when it is identified as what school learning is about, such practices can be seen as problematic learning activities. Extended to later literacy learning, to such activities such as practicing the recitation of phonic drills, they become even more problematic, in that they do not represent or initiate the social and cognitive strategies that go into the practices of reading and writing except in the very restricted version of reading and writing as naming activities. (Prinsloo, 2005, p. 147)
Prinsloo observes how recitations, chanting, drilling of phonics and other list-learning ―are as much about regulating a group of small children as they are about literacy teaching" (2005, p.
156). This, he concludes, is what children learn about what reading and writing mean in the context of school-based practices.
Willenberg (2005) outlines two important pedagogical issues which limit literacy development in South Africa. Firstly, there is a common misconception that literacy only begins in Grade 1, and that it can only be developed through structured, formal learning.
Willenberg argues that this has a negative impact on Grade R, where teachers often try to avoid planning formal and informal literacy activities. Secondly she argues that teachers do not sufficiently understand how language and literacy are interrelated, and that children need to engage in enriching conversations to develop the kind of decontextualised language skills needed in academic life. Such activities would include recounting past events, planning future events, providing explanations and being involved in various kinds of play activities.
When we consider classroom practice as a factor in the development of reading proficiency, the extent to which learners read extensively is also an important consideration. Pretorius and Ribbens (2005, p. 144) showed that ―unless learners are exposed to extensive reading, they do not easily develop those meaning construction processes so central to comprehension‖.
They also showed that many young readers cannot access different genres of writing, including literature genres (which affect motivation to read).
Condy (2008) conducted a four year project in South Africa to ―establish a set of competencies describing teachers‘ professional understandings of their pedagogical reading tasks‖ (2008, p. 609). From this research emerged 41 themes regarding what the teachers
think the best teachers of primary reading do on a daily basis. These themes are listed in Figure 7 below. The difference in focus between Condy‘s work and the work on effective teachers in Britain reported in Section 2.5.3 is remarkable. Condy does not explicitly analyse theoretical and methodological approaches to the teaching of reading, and as can be seen from Figure 7, does not mention creating opportunities to practice reading, modelling effective reading, strategies for meaning interpretation, only mentions the use of phonic cues to read difficult words and calls for questioning to determine if students have understood the text in the same way. Condy‘s list mentions ―the deeper meaning of a story‖ but gives no guidance as to what effective teachers do to help learners to access this meaning. She emphasises the use of texts to help solve social problems, to sensitise learners to cultural issues and to stimulate discussion on controversial issues. Condy‘s indicators of effective primary school reading teachers reflects the dominant view in South Africa that children should be ―taught‖ to read in the Foundation Phase, but that from then on in schooling such instruction is not necessary.
Figure 9: Core Indicators of an Effective Reading Teacher (CIERTQ) (Condy, 2008)
Reading for scaffolding techniques:
The best teachers of reading are those who:
1. Encourage their learners to find fictional and non-fictional materials in response to a theme.
2. Display these books in the class to encourage the learners to read them.
3. Allow time for their learners to retell the story in their own words.
4. Read, understand and write using a variety of text types with their learners.
5. Refer to and use stories to solve social problems in the class such as stealing.
6. Choose appropriate text resources to solve problems and make decisions.
7. Link the text to the learner‘s prior knowledge.
8. Allow their learners time to respond to what has been read.
9. Allow their learners to summarise written text.
Reading for meaning and interpretation:
The best teachers of reading are those who:
10. Explore different interpretations of idiomatic and figurative expressions found in text.
11. Explore the moral of a story.
12. Explore the deeper meaning of a story.
13. Compare and contrast elements in a story such as character, setting or events.
14. Make time to talk about author‘s styles of writing.
15. Speak to the learners in an ordered, clear and well-organised manner.
Reading for scanning and research:
The best teachers of reading are those who:
16. When choosing a book, guide their learners to read reviews rather than looking at covers.
17. Discuss interpersonal relationships amongst the characters in a story.
18. When reading, encourage their learners to self-correct so that the meaning is maintained.
19. Encourage their learners to find resources inside their school to complete projects.
20. Identify popular reading resources in the community.
21. Allow time for their learners to skim and scan the text to find relevant information.
Reading for reflection and analysis:
The best teachers of reading are those who:
22. When reading books encourage objective discussions on controversial social issues.
23. Encourage their learners to make judgments about information in the text.
24. Use graphic aids such as graphs and tables to interpret information in a text.
25. Provide opportunities to discover major ideas in text and supporting ideas.
26. Sensitise learners to cultural issues.
27. Spend time analysing plots and characters of stories.
Reading for understanding:
The best teachers of reading are those who:
28. Teach learners to apply their knowledge of phonics when reading difficult words.
29. Re-read the text if the meaning is not clear.
30. Teach editing skills such as spelling, grammar and punctuation.
31. Encourage their learners to read with appropriate expression.
32. Build a rapport with their learners.
33. Allow opportunities to teach the meanings of difficult vocabulary.
34. Ask probing questions about the content to see if their learners understand the text.
35. Check to see that different readers understand the content of a story in the same way.
Reading for application:
The best teachers of reading are those who:
36. Compare text information with their learners.
37. Use discussions from the text as a form of review.
38. Make predictions from the passage.
39. Role model social skills such as taking turns and listening to others.
Reading to make judgments:
The best teachers of reading are those who:
40. Use correct grammatical structures when speaking to their learners.
41. Allow learners time to give opinions of the text.