It is interesting to note that in the old dispensation, according to the teachers’ beliefs, although teachers were not professionally qualified, they were able to teach learners how to read. When one compares today’s teaching methods with those of the earlier days, it seems according to the teachers’ perceptions, they could read and this influenced the way they teach reading in their classrooms. The section below reports on the strategies which the two teachers interviewed recall were used in teaching reading in the past.
4.4 STRATEGIES WHICH RESPONDENTS RECALL THEIR TEACHERS
Cassy also noted that sometimes teachers used flash cards and learners were made to recognize such a word either by sounding or reading the word from memory. She also said:
I sounded words in my mother tongue and formulated sentences out of the words.
I had to know the sounds and word lists which were given by the teacher.
From their responses both teachers indicated that through the phonic method, they learnt how to read. They sounded out words in the mother tongue more often than in any other language. They were drilled in saying the sounds on a daily basis.
Namibia. MBESC (2005) revised curriculum states that learners in Grade 4 should focus more on independent reading because reading at this stage should be purposeful and automatic. The curriculum does not therefore refer to the teaching of phonics in this grade. But looking back, the teachers’ views are that the phonic method helped greatly in teaching learners how to read. Of course, we cannot rely on the accuracy of teachers’
memories in this regard. Nevertheless, the phonic method is evidently still used to teach reading in the Grade 4 classrooms I visited during this study, particularly in Cassy’s class. This suggests that teachers’ beliefs influence the way they were taught in the past.
4.4.2 Drilling
Both teachers said drilling was the most common strategy used in the past. For example, teachers drilled vowel sounds with different consonants in their mother tongue and in Afrikaans. Cassy said it was necessary in Otjiherero to know and formulate words and sentences out of these sounds. Abby remembered very well that in Grade 4, they memorized the Bible verse of John 3: 16, which she said she can still recite up to now.
She further said they recited substitution tables in order to know language structures e.g.
collective pronouns and tenses. She even said that tenses were dealt with at a particular time, for example, if the week was meant for drilling the present tense, they drilled until they knew it and how it worked.
Both teachers believed that drilling had helped them to learn how to read. When asked if drilling had been used when they learnt to read in Grade 4, they both said that drilling was done throughout the Lower Primary phase and that it was done on a daily basis.
When asked if they also used drilling in their classrooms, both said they did as this helped learners to recognize the sentence order and some of the common sight words.
Abby said: “I cannot do away with the way I was taught in the past totally. I still use some of the methodologies”.
From what they said one sees that teachers’ beliefs and perceptions are shaped by the way they were taught in the past.
4.4.3 The use of a variety of methods
Both teachers said their own teachers had used a variety of methods when teaching reading in the classroom. Cassy said her teacher used techniques like flash cards (which are commonly used in the Look and Say method), vocabulary word lists and sight words.
She said these were the methods she could remember her teacher using in Grade 4. Abby had this to say: “My teacher used to combine the methods when teaching. She used any method she thought was suitable for us to understand”.
According to Cassy, there is no best method for teaching reading; even the teachers in the past used the method they thought was best to enable the learners to read. It is interesting to note that both teachers mentioned that any method is good as long as learners are assisted to read.
4.4.4 Spelling/Dictation
Abby stressed that they did a lot of spelling and dictation when she was in Grade 4. She could remember very well that almost every Friday they had a spelling test on the vocabulary words they had done during the week. She said this forced her to learn and knew the words well. Abby recalled that the teacher dictated a paragraph to them from their class reader and they wrote the dictation without opening their reader. She said this forced them to have good listening skills and pay attention to what they were reading in a reader.
Cassy also said that the teacher dictated comprehension questions from the reader and they had to write answers in their exercise books. She elaborated further:
Sometimes these questions went up to twenty marks and the rule was to get half of the questions right. This also forced me to read the story over and over again in order to prepare for the dictation.
Abby said spelling and dictation were timetabled and it was necessary for them to have these tests. It is interesting to note that spelling and dictation were among the many components of reading instruction in the past and that, according to the respondents, this forced learners to learn to read.
The most interesting aspect of the respondents’ recall of how they were taught to read is that according to the teachers’ memories and perceptions their teachers seem to have used similar reading approaches though they were taught in two different settings.
I am now going to examine how these two teachers teach reading in their own
classroom, looking at their experiences and strategies used in teaching reading currently in their classrooms.