Experts discuss difficulties of teaching literacy to children
Little more than three minutes a week is how much time the average public school teacher is able to dedicate to an individual child’s reading.
At the current trajectory, it will take 86 years four generations for SA to catch up our backlog in the life-changing skill of being able to read and, more importantly, understand what you read.
In May, basic education minister Angie Motshekga revealed the alarming statistic from the Pirls (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) 2021 that only 19% of SA’s grade 4 pupils could read for meaning.
Four people at the coalface of public school education were panelists at the Eastern Cape launch of the Right to Read campaign at Fikizolo Primary School in Makhanda on Thursday October 19 and they laid bare some of the circumstances that have created this situation.
Makhanda teacher Tabisa Booi described her experience of a four-year posting at a rural school near Qonce (formerly King WIllliam’s Town).
“We had books, but teachers didn’t know how to use them. We set our own tests and moderated our own work. We had minimal textbooks”
The textbooks they were issued with for isiXhosa-speaking children were poorly translated renditions of stories about experiences and situations that bore no relevance to their lives.
The most effective tool for developing good reading skills was group-guided reading, Booi said. “Thirty minutes a week were allocated.”
With 39 pupils, that meant she had exactly 3.3 minutes per pupil per week.
“In four years, we had only one workshop on how to use the teaching materials,” Booi said.
“The way things are now, you need to cross a river to get literacy.”
Referring to the game-changing School Nutrition Programme, Booi said, “If we could do it for nutrition, why can’t we do it for reading?.”
Literacy researcher and practitioner Kelly Long emphasised that teaching children how to read for meaning was a complex process.
“It requires adequate specialised training, specialised resources and lots of time and patience,” Long said.
“We need to encourage teachers to teach children, and not the curriculum,” Long said.
As far as testing was concerned, teachers should be trained and supported to conduct baseline assessments in the first two weeks of the year. These should be used to inform teaching.
Post provisioning norms the policies and processes for appointing teaching staff were “a big issue”, Long said. There were often long delays in appointing staff.
Most of all, she said, there should be more teachers’ voices heard when it came to making policy decisions because they have the most knowledge of what happens in classrooms.”
Archie Mbolekwa Primary School principal Lindiso Funani was scathing about teachers who travelled to development workshops to stay in hotels and B&Bs, but when they returned, they failed to share or implement what they learned.
“That is tantamount to stealing,” Funani said, suggesting teachers should be obliged to present a portfolio of evidence, or pay back the money.
Tania Christian taught foundation phase at St Mary’s Primary School for 25 years before being appointed subject adviser. She said having only one subject adviser per subject for both Makana and Ndlambe means they are unable to support as many teachers as they need to.
What is the Right to Read campaign
The Right to Read campaign, led by the SA Human Rights Commission, aims to make earlygrade literacy a national priority through legislative reform and the development of binding regulations for the first three grades.
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