‘High-dosage’ support for teachers a boon for literacy

● Intensive support for teachers teaching English first additional language last year has paid dividends — pupils have shown rapid improvement in reading skills.

A study assessing the reading skills of 846 Grade 2 and 3 pupils in 188 schools has shown that “highdosage” support for teachers improved pupils’ oral reading and comprehension skills.

Known as the primary school reading improvement programme, the investigation was conducted by the National Education Collaboration Trust, which is collaborating with the Department of Basic Education to help improve pupils’ learning outcomes.

It comes after the results of the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, which showed that 78% of Grade 4s can’t read for meaning.

The reading improvement programme found that the impacts were greatest for pupils who did not have English books to read at home or who had no one to read English books to them. “This indicates that the [programme] had bigger positive impacts on the reading skills of learners with relatively higher degrees of social disadvantage than others,” the report said.

“Subject advisers, teachers and schools are making progress and should be recognised and celebrated.”

The trust’s priorities for improving reading in schools this year, according to its 2017 annual report, include:

● Increasing reading time inside and outside classrooms; ● Making use of longer reading texts;

● Increasing the time spent and written work in reading comprehension and writing exercises;

● Making greater use of English across the curriculum where meaningful; and

● Promoting reading outside the school.

Trust CEO Godwin Khosa said a reading programme rolled out in 1 670 schools showed a pronounced improvement in the teaching of reading and in pupils’ letter and sound recognition.

In his reflections in the annual report, he said “reading is a national sore point”. He added: “The low reading levels emphasise the need for strengthened collaborations and more work. We will be intensifying our efforts towards co-ordinating a national response to our country’s reading challenge.”