On-site teacher-coaching solution

It is crucial that the authorities urgently implement the findings of research into how to improve literacy and learning in the early stages of schooling, argues non-governmental organisation

MILLIONS of children next week enter the most important period of their school careers – the foundation phase (Grades R to 3). It is in these grades that basic learning skills must be acquired. All later learning is built on this aptly named stage of schooling.

A precarious foundation results in weak learning outcomes in later years. Given that these children – the large majority of whom attend historically black and underfunded schools – are unable to read for meaning, they cannot use the skill of reading to acquire new knowledge in various subject disciplines.

Put simply, children who have not learnt to read, cannot read to learn. Analysis of 2012 and 2013 Annual National Assessment data finds that, for most pupils, passing matric well and potentially obtaining a university degree is already largely unattainable by the time these children reach the end of Grade 3.

Education strongly affects earning power. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) asserts the “most effective way to bring about meaningful socio-economic transformation in South Africa is to improve the teaching and learning of reading in schools serving historically disadvantaged communities”.

To exercise their rights and freedoms, children must be able to read. There is no quick fix to the primary school reading crisis, but there are crucial levers that must urgently be employed.

The 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) revealed that after four years of schooling, a devastating 78% of South African pupils cannot read for meaning. This compares poorly with the international average of 4% and with other middle-income countries such as Iran (35%) and Bulgaria (5%).

Pupils from rural areas achieved significantly lower scores than those in suburban and urban areas, with the latter being more than two years of schooling ahead. Disparities were also evident between language groups, with pupils who wrote in English and Afrikaans achieving higher scores than those who wrote in other African languages.

Home environment made a substantial difference. Pupils from affluent homes were close to three years of learning ahead of those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Home resources such as books, internet access and bettereducated parents with higher-level occupations are strongly associated with pupil reading literacy achievement.

These findings (and others available in the full report) reveal the reading crisis is complex and shaped by various factors.

An intervention model to improve home language reading outcomes has emerged from the Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS), led by the DBE. There had previously been “little or no evidence” of which initiatives are effective in supporting early-grade reading, and why.

The large-scale evaluation targeted three intervention models, all implemented in the Grade 1 class of 2015, and with the same cohort of pupils in Grade 2 in 2016, in a sample of quintile one to three schools. These were:

Daily lesson plans, reading material, and centralised training for teachers;

Daily lesson plans, reading material, and on-site coaching for teachers;

Weekly meetings with parents, and material to use at home.

By the end of Grade 2, pupils at schools where teachers were assisted by on-site coaching were 40% of a year’s worth of learning ahead of those in the schools without intervention. The impact of the other two interventions was less than half of that.

Teachers in the coaching schools were more likely to report feeling a high level of professional support. Lesson observations revealed that in the coaching schools (and the centralised training schools) more pupils were reading the graded readers (books of different levels of difficulty), which means teachers were making effective use of resources.

The coaching and centralised training made a difference in how pupils practised reading – teachers were more likely to do group-guided reading (small groups of pupils with similar ability).

The EGRS report concludes that the coaching intervention is the most cost-effective programme for which there is evidence that learning outcomes can be shifted. We urge the DBE to urgently scale up the coaching intervention. The cost of doing so in 100 schools is currently estimated at R6 million.

This is a paltry expense in comparison with the amounts that the government haemorrhages due to mismanagement and corruption. South Africa cannot afford to delay implementing this intervention in at least 500 schools in each province, as the EGRS report recommends.

While there is much debate on the impact of class size on learning outcomes, research suggests size reductions can be effective when initial class sizes are extremely large. Class size tends to have a bigger impact in earlier grades, and for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Education policy in South

Africa sets the ideal maximum class size for Grades R to 4, at 35.

PICTURE : SIMONE KLEY To one day hope to be chairman of a board, rather than carry chairs, pupils must be able to read for meaning.