Abstract
Early literacy teaching and learning in the foundation phase of rural schools in South Africa experience persistent challenges. In order to address some of these challenges, a national reading programme to improve literacy among rural learners was initiated by a non-governmental organisation. The article provides an overview of how teachers in selected Eastern Cape foundation classrooms use the reading programme to enhance literacy of the learners. The objectives of the article are to investigate how the reading project has been incorporated into the teachers’ teaching pedagogy and their perceptions as to how the reading programme has contributed to the school and community. Four purposively selected rural schools, each being part of the reading programme, served as research sites. Participants included eight teachers who used the reading supplement in their classroom. Qualitative data were gathered using semi-structured interviews with the teachers in each school. Through a process of thematic content analysis, the following themes emerged: (1) pedagogical challenges, (2) infrastructure and provisioning for literacy and (3) community engagement. The considerations for future reading programmes in rural areas include cost, availability of resources, training of teachers and practical aspects of the supplement, for example, font size and length of stories. These findings illustrate how the foundation teachers use the reading programme to enhance the literacy curriculum in schools situated in rural settings. The recommendation of the article is that the reading programme is useful and teachers should be encouraged to use the supplement reading activities in the foundation phase.
Highlights
A recent study conducted in the Eastern Cape among Grade 4 learners found that 32% of the learners were considered illiterate, while 60% could not read for meaning at the end of this grade
The study found that this could not be the sole reason for these poor results as the literacy results remained similar whether they were tested in their home language (HL) or English
The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of how teachers in selected Eastern Cape foundation classrooms use a reading programme to enhance the literacy curriculum
Summary
A recent study conducted in the Eastern Cape among Grade 4 learners found that 32% of the learners were considered illiterate, while 60% could not read for meaning at the end of this grade. One of the reasons attributed to these poor results is that the learners were tested in English, which becomes the language of learning and teaching in Grade 4, rather than their mother tongue. A second reason often blamed for poor literacy is the overcrowding of rural classrooms with 27% of Grades 1–3 in the Eastern Cape province having more than 55 pupils per class (Charter 2016). In this situation, teachers are not able to observe and facilitate the learning of literacy skills of diverse groups of children. The study further found that many foundation phase teachers in South Africa do not have the content-knowledge base and pedagogical skills to teach children to read (Charter 2016)
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