CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE ON TEACHING EARLY READING IN SOUTH
3.4 T HEMES IN S OUTH A FRICAN R EADING R ESEARCH
3.4.1 The National Curriculum Statement
The National Curriculum Statement provides the policy framework within which teaching of reading in this case study occurred. One group of explanations for the poor reading performance of South African school children focuses on the curriculum. Before considering critiques of the curriculum, the expectations it sets out for the teaching of Foundation Phase learners are discussed.
At the time this research was conducted, the curriculum in operation in South Africa was called the Revised National Curriculum Statement or RNCS (South Africa. National Department of Education, 2002). This curriculum was formalised, unchanged, into the National Curriculum Statement or NCS in 2006. The Revised National Curriculum Statement was the result of the revision of the first curriculum to apply to the whole of South Africa, called Curriculum 2005 (C2005), which was constructed on outcomes-based principles (see Chisholm et al., 2000, for a critique of C2005). It should be noted that while supporting
policy documents such as those connected with the Foundations for Learning Campaign, gazetted in 2008, the Reading Policy Handbook (South Africa. KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education, n.d.), and the National Reading Strategy (South Africa. National Department of Education, 2008b) clarified and provided detail regarding the teaching of literacy in the Foundation Phase of schooling, the NCS has remained the key guiding document. It is evident that any teacher in the Foundation Phase has to understand and integrate the contents of a number of (sometimes contradictory as will shortly be explained) documents in the process of determining what to do in the classroom.
The NCS explicitly aims to produce life-long learners who are ―confident and independent, literate, numerate and multi-skilled, compassionate, with a respect for the environment and the ability to participate in society as a critical and active citizen‖ (South Africa. National Department of Education, 2002, p. 4).
According to the NCS, in the Foundation Phase (Grades R – 3), reading is taught as part of the Literacy Learning Programme, which is allocated 40% of the curricular time, or 1 hour and 50 minutes a day for Grades R, 1 and 2, and two hours a day for Grade 3. The Literacy Learning Programme has six Learning Outcomes, namely: (1) listening; (2) speaking; (3) reading and viewing; (4) writing; (5) thinking and reasoning; and (6) language structure and use. It is acknowledged that these Learning Outcomes are integrally linked. Outcome 3, relating to reading and viewing is most specific about how the learner is seen to learn to read.
This outcome intends to produce a learner who is ―able to read and view for information and enjoyment and respond critically to the aesthetic, cultural and emotional values in texts‖
(South Africa. National Department of Education, 2002, p. 33).
The curricular time allocated for the Literacy Learning Programme includes work in both first and second languages. The teacher’s guide to the curriculum in the Foundation Phase (South Africa. National Department of Education, 2003b) sets out various scenarios for the balance of time to be spent teaching L1 and L2. The NCS advocates that children should study through the medium of their home language ―where possible.‖
According to the NCS, over the course of the Foundation Phase, the Assessment Standards for English Home Language for ―Reading and Viewing‖ require that the learner:
Uses visual cues to make meaning (Grades R – 3);
Role-plays reading (Grades R – 1);
Makes meaning of written text (Grades R – 3);
Starts recognising and making meaning of letters and words (Grade R);
Recognises letters and words and makes meaning of written text (Grade 1);
Recognises and makes meaning of words in longer texts (Grade 2);
Reads texts alone and uses a variety of strategies to make meaning (Grade 3);
Begins developing phonic awareness (Grade R);
Develops phonics awareness (Grades 1 & 2);
Consolidates phonic awareness (Grade 3);
Reads for information and enjoyment (Grades 1 – 3).
At Grade 1 level the English First Additional Language curriculum regarding the ―Reading and Viewing‖ learning outcome involves the learners using pictures to understand written text, matching words and objects by sticking labels on objects, following printed instructions on one-word flash cards, reading picture books with one- or two-word captions and building up sight recognition of common words, as well as developing phonemic awareness by recognising initial consonants and short vowel sounds.
It is unclear from the NCS whether or not all the criteria for the ―Reading and Viewing‖
outcome must be met, and the curriculum does not highlight ―warning signs‖ for reading problems which might guide teachers to take appropriate action (Pretorius & Naudé, 2004, p.
49).
The NCS supports an emergent literacy approach rather than reading readiness, and it advocates teaching both decoding and meaning-making, though ―reading for meaning is the main purpose‖ (South Africa. National Department of Education, 2002, p. 23). It specifies a
―balanced approach‖ (2002, p. 22) saying that learners should both read ―real books‖ and learn phonics (2002, p. 23). Teachers are exhorted to create print-rich classrooms (South Africa. National Department of Education, 2003b, p. 23).
The Teacher’s Guide to the Curriculum in the Foundation Phase (South Africa. National Department of Education, 2003b) presents a slightly different interpretation of the teaching of literacy in the Foundation Phase to the NCS. The Teacher‘s Guide advocates ―an eclectic approach‖ to teaching literacy (South Africa. National Department of Education, 2003b, p.
50) as opposed to the ―balanced approach‖ referred to in the NCS. As detailed in Chapter 2, balance in literacy teaching has been variously interpreted, but it is seen in a more coherent theoretical way than is implied by simply adopting an eclectic collection of methodologies.
The Teacher‘s Guide states that language is gradually and (mostly) subconsciously acquired, through the experience of large amounts of input in which 80% is familiar, and developed by productive language output in which semantic mistakes are part of the acquisition process (2003, p. 49-50). The assertion in the Teacher‘s Guide that ―We learn a First Additional Language and develop that language in much the same way as we learn our home language‖
(2003, p. 50) is described by Reeves et al. as ―theoretically incorrect‖ (2008, p. 50).
The Teacher‘s Guide promotes ―the communicative approach‖ to language teaching. Reeves et al. argue that this approach fails to develop a solid enough foundation of literacy in the mother tongue to enable the later development of literacy in English as a second language for academic purposes (2008, p. 46). Practically, teachers have also not been given sufficient support about what communicative language teaching entails, and many teachers have mistakenly believed that the communicative approach favours speaking and listening above reading and writing (Abadzi, 2006, p. 76).
There are various published critiques of the curriculum as a whole. For example, Jansen (1999) critiques the outcomes-based nature of the curriculum, Chisholm (2006) provides an understanding of the politics of the curriculum developments and Allais (2007) focuses on its technicist nature. Macdonald (2002), E. Pretorius and Naudé (2002), Bloch (2005) and Reeves et al. (2008) specifically comment on the reading (or, more broadly, literacy) curriculum.
Macdonald notes that the precursor to the NCS, Curriculum 2005, was developed without the input of any primary school teachers on the language committees with the consequence that
―The nature and demands of learning to read and write were totally ignored and consequently the capacity of children to create meaning for themselves during the whole course of their school learning was fundamentally compromised‖ (Macdonald, 2002, p. 136). She criticises
the NCS for "technicism run riot" which "detracts from …developing and nurturing the creation of meaning at the very earliest of levels" (Macdonald, 2002, p. 117).
Bloch maintains that the NCS does not take into account the realities of the linguistic contexts in which students live, and that this is a major barrier to their learning to read and write.
The fact that so many children grow up in communities where they rarely if ever come into contact with reading and writing being used powerfully and meaningfully in their home languages has not influenced the design or implementation of curricula…. We are still gripped by the erroneous belief that we can teach reading and writing in social and cultural vacuums, as sets of skills which will constitute the 'tools' for reading and writing.
(Bloch, 2005, p.7)
Reeves et al. characterise the NCS as ―loose[ly] ideological‖ (2008, p. xx) and argue that
―The whole language approach and more laissez-faire approaches to literacy development, in conjunction with the communicative approach to language teaching are having seriously negative effects on the education of the majority of children who are from socially disadvantaged communities.‖ (2008, p. xxi). This echoes the arguments of Delpit and Abadzi recounted in Chapter 2.
From these few critical assessments of the South African reading curriculum the conclusion must be drawn that the curriculum itself may be a barrier to children learning to read. It is contended that a well trained and competent teacher may well be able to work easily with this curriculum, but that for the average teacher in the average South African school it provides too little guidance, too little structure and too little focus.