Building learners' reading literacy for academic resilience in challenging reading literacy development contexts

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the review of school-based practices as part of a community of care for reading literacy development. There is a large corpus of knowledge on effective schools for reading literacy development from developed country contexts but less so from developing contexts such as South Africa. There is a specific paucity of research on the promotion of reading literacy in schooling contexts that are less than optimal due to teaching, learner, context, and resource factors. This chapter explores the school contexts and resources that can promote reading literacy for academic resilience in South African schools, where the majority of learners struggle in their development of reading literacy. Firstly, reading literacy development challenges in South African schools are contextualised by considering South African learners’ reading literacy achievement and the prevailing challenges thereof. The connection between academic resilience and reading literacy is then posited. This is followed by a discussion of the crucial role of schools for reading literacy development via contemplation of school reading culture and the school as a literacy community as well as the characteristics of effective schools for the enablement of learners’ reading literacy development. In summation, the place of the school as a reading development resource to build learners’ reading literacy for academic resilience is argued.