One of the fundamental skills of education for students concerns the development of reading in the early stages of education. Students in the Foundation Phase (FP) need to acquire a number of skills to prepare them for the demands of the Intermediate Phase (IP) and beyond. The research will be valuable in selecting the strategies that will help students read fluently in their native or home language.
Included in the chapter are the topic, critical key questions, purpose (rational) and methodology of the study.
Reading aloud 10
The second step is to decide on the tuning of the piece so that the appropriate tone is used. The final step is to read to learners and make eye contact with the audience as they read.
Shared reading 11
The above points will motivate students to listen to the story, read with enthusiasm and engage with the story while listening and be eager to imitate the teacher's skills when reading. Reading aloud is for all grades and can be used in all subjects (Teacher's Handbook: 2008).
Group guided reading 12
In the foundation phase, the books chosen are colorful to attract the readers' attention. In the process of reading, learners succeed in developing skills for punctuation, spelling and meaningful writing in the context of the story.
Paired / independent reading 12
When planning lessons, teachers should consider such diversity in the classroom even for a reading lesson. CAPS requires a paradigm shift where "strategies include requirements such as group-directed reading, shared reading, phonics (including phonemic awareness) and paired / independent reading" (DoE, 2012 p.11).
Language acquisition 17
In the past there has been a growing call for the expansion of high quality pre-school opportunities aimed at developing and maintaining language from an early stage. In the past there has been a growing call for the expansion of high quality pre-school opportunities aimed at developing and maintaining language from an early stage.
Components of teaching reading 19
- Phonemic awareness 19
- Word recognition 20
- Comprehension 20
- Vocabulary 21
- Fluency 22
- Teaching competency 22
Activities for teaching phonemic awareness include rhymes associated with a familiar object, how to clap each syllable, put sounds together, word beginning sounds, substitute certain letters, put sounds together to make a new word, say parts you hear in the word and deletion of a specific letter in the word. In see and say words (sight words), students must recognize an individual word that can help them to read even unfamiliar words. This will help the word formation of students of other known words with the same sounds or letter.
The teacher can use the word in question to make word cards that can be hung on the classroom walls. In the paradigm shift in education systems from the old apartheid school system to the new CAPS, parents fail to keep up with the changes and help their children at home as expected. In some situations, it is not surprising that a teacher at the elementary stage cannot demonstrate a good knowledge of different strategies to help students in the classroom.
Most researchers reveal the fact that teachers, especially at the foundation stage, are not or insufficiently qualified to teach. The foundation of educating students lies in the hands of poorly trained teachers, who will be involved in negatively influencing the curriculum. When teachers were interviewed, their responses revealed that they found that after the training they received, they were unable to implement the strategies in the classroom.
Support for teachers 23
For classroom lessons to be successful, students must be exposed to such resources. The lack of resources, including municipal libraries, is a result of former historical inequalities from the past. This theory is important to this study because it can help the researcher to explain some aspects and steps of reading.
As a next step, profiles of the teachers as participants or respondents of the study are developed. Three teachers were selected to be interviewed and observed in their classroom teaching. The next part of the chapter describes the paradigm in which the study is situated.
An insight must be provided for the situation encountered for a clear understanding of the phenomena. In order to relate the study to the paradigm, the researcher investigated different aspects in the classroom during observation (how the teacher used the resources, participation of learners and effective implementation of strategies). The central phenomenon in this case is "the exploration of reading strategies used by teachers to teach isiZulu in grade one".
Profile of the research site 33
The principal plans to build more classrooms with the help of the sponsors to eradicate the problem of classroom overcrowding, especially for class three students. The school's principal is under pressure to ensure that, in addition to the infrastructure, there are many matters that require his attention. The school's governing body (SGB) is dependent on the principal for effective participation of students and teachers.
The part of the township where the school is located has parents who belong to a lower income group. He works hard to make sure the school is a full-fledged primary school, with the most essential resources as the number of learners increases. He is positive that most problems will be eradicated in three to four years and the school will function properly.
Proper functioning of the school will result in better results for the students in the classroom. An interesting fact is that the school consists of teachers who have been working at the school for many years. The majority of teachers believe that the school does not need any change.
Profile of the teachers
The selection was easy because they were the only teachers teaching the school's first grade. When data is described as “rich” and “thick,” it becomes authentic in the eyes of the researcher. What are the results of the reading strategies that teachers implement when teaching isiZulu to group 1 students.
Teachers will be able to compare the strategies they have been using with the new recommended ones. A recommendation will be made that teachers be properly trained in how to use reading strategies they may not have known about. Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Painter (2006) are of the opinion that interviews are part of skilled performance.
There is an openness and trust brought about by the interpretive approach as a result of the interview. Maphumulo is of the opinion that qualitative interviewing seeks to collect data from respondents in order to learn about the ideas, beliefs, views, opinions and behaviors that may occur in the process. The goal is to see the world through the eyes of the participants by asking questions to obtain rich data.
The semi-structured interview 38
When collecting data, the researcher needs a tool that is suitable for the interaction for personal views. The semi-structured interview is selected for this study as the primary source of data collection. The interview guide approach combined with informal conversational interviews provides data that is rich and in-depth.
Open-ended questions are asked to allow participants to express their own opinions without fear of other members involved in the study. Each teacher was given a few minutes to think constructively about the answers to the planned questions. The questions are written on the transparency so that the teacher can answer them in any order.
The casual relaxed manner of approach allowed teachers to be completely comfortable as the interview progressed. The downside is that the participants read about the topic before coming to the interview. The answers they gave were those they thought were appropriate and correct for the interviewer.
The interview schedule 38
In the opposite observation (unstructured), the observer records what happens in the classroom (Betrum, 2003). The information about the number of teachers, their qualifications and students for each class in the school is displayed on the principal's wall. During the interview and observation sessions, one of the teachers had the figures in his file, which is on display in the office.
A pilot exercise was carried out with two teachers in one of the schools in the neighborhood. There was no concrete evidence to suggest that teachers understood the real issues involved in implementing the strategies. The distribution of time for each subject (native language) is determined in the policy document (2012, p. 6-8).
Access to the teachers in the classrooms will be negotiated with the principal, the Governing Body and the researcher (myself). Understanding the above, I hereby agree to participate in the above study. What does the Curriculum and Assessment Policy (CAPS) document say about teaching reading (Home Language) in the Foundation Stage.
Observation 39
Data presentation 44
In the case of this study, the level of knowledge and experience in the pilot project was higher than the teachers selected for the study. The teachers alluded to poor training and a lack of support in the unmanageable classes as some of the challenges they faced. This study explores the strategies implemented by grade one isiZulu teachers in one school in the Pinetown district of the KwaMashu circuit when teaching reading.
This chapter presents the summary of the findings, limitations of the study, researcher's recommendations, and conclusion. Validity and reliability were concepts that were critical for the researcher to measure teachers' understanding of the questions. It would be greatly appreciated if you would like to participate in the study of isiZulu reading strategies.
