Against a contextual background of deprivation, South Africa is constantly placed at the bottom
of achievement when compared to participating countries in large-scale assessments of reading
competency. In an attempt to address the reasons underlying such under-achievement, this
paper seeks to provide evidence gleaned from selected Foundation Phase teacher focus group
interviews about the reading practices that are employed when teaching reading in resource
deprived environments to children from linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Given South Africa’s poor performance in reading assessments, the research questions
focussed, firstly, on the challenges reported when working in resource-constrained settings,
with the added complexity of linguistic diversity amongst learners; secondly, the reading
strategies and the solutions teachers suggest when teaching these learners were observed and
critically evaluated against a backdrop of national and international studies on reading.
Focus group interviews were conducted at two resource constrained schools in township
settings in the Gauteng province. Each focus group consisted of six Foundation Phase teachers,
who are currently teaching students between Grades 1 and 3. The teachers varied in ages
between 24 and 64. All the participating teachers were female and had previously received
training as Foundation Phase teachers.
Atlas.ti was used for the content analysis of the data and by means of open coding, we
created codes, indicated by subtitles such as “Reading challenges”, “Reading strategies”
and “Solutions to problems”. As each code was created, the programme used it to detect the relevant content in the interviews, which was then tagged with the code name. In this way, it
was easy to determine what various participants had commented on different topics during
the interviews in the data analysis.
One of the most commonly mentioned reading-specific challenges occurs when learners
are supposed to “read”, since it would appear that they are not really reading, but rather
relying on their memory. Sometimes learners even “read” without having any books in front
of them. It is easy for the learners to memorise what they have read from the graded readers,
since words and phrases are often repeated in these readers. Often learners are also “reading”
the pictures, therefore reading what they think based on what is happening in the pictures.
Furthermore, due to the absence of decoding skills, learners do not know how to construct
sentences, and are therefore also experiencing problems with writing. The lesson plans provide
ready made assessments where little effort or evidence of skill mastery is expected of learners.
In terms of resource specific challenges, teachers paint a social context where many
learners live in shacks without electricity, and are likely to come from abusive families where
drugs and illegal gambling are commonplace. The two schools that participated in this study
serve many families who come from different regions of the country or other countries like
Malawi and Zimbabwe. Learners therefore find themselves in classrooms where the LoLT is
mainly Sepedi or isiZulu, languages that many of them do not understand.
Teachers described the lack of parental support in terms of parents who do not get involved in their children’s schoolwork, who do not help children with their homework and where there
is no culture of reading at home that could be cultivated, for example, by parents who themselves
read or who buy books or newspapers. Class sizes posed another resource specific constraint.
Teachers reported that their classes are too big to pay attention to all individuals while reading.
The number of learners fluctuates between 35 and 46 students per class. Teachers indicated that when teaching reading, they mostly start a lesson with phonics,
progress to using pictures, after which they then proceed to words, and thereafter sentences.
Great emphasis is placed on the difference between the vowels and consonants.
The teacher also breaks up the word in syllables and let students repeat those in order to
enhance easier reading. Posters that accompany the textbooks are also used, specifically to
teach tenses and plurals. Pictures seem to be the most important strategy, and are reportedly
used by all the teachers.
Teachers also emphasise that they frequently explain what they regard as difficult words,
followed by questions on what should be prior knowledge. Only then the story is read and
explained. Thereafter they let the class join in a reading chorus after which they ask them
questions based on the story.
Questioning is an important strategy, happening at any time during the reading process.
The use of flashcards is widely practised and usually done when teachers put flashcards on
the wall to aid with word recognition and learners reading all the words they did, for example,
in the first term. The teachers start with words on flashcards on Monday and introduce more
words every day. Questions are conducted orally, and any written work expected from students
is postponed until Friday. Learners are required to answer questions about the stories in
written format, and they have to write down what they have drawn if they had to draw a picture
of the story. The reading lesson is concluded by doing corrections of the written work.
Teachers were not able to provide any solutions to their classroom reading practice or
reflect on alternative strategies where current strategies proved to be ineffective. No convincing
evidence could be found where teachers ascertain whether learners have read with
understanding by giving feedback on the strategies and skills that were used. In the examples
that were provided, teachers merely asked learners to repeat what was read in a chorus, with
little inquiry as to which strategies were used or how learners managed to arrive at
understanding when reading independently.
The significance of the current study lies in its presentation of existing literature about
what is known about early grade reading instruction and evidence to the contrary from this
study that shows that directed reading instruction is not done satisfactorily. The ineffectiveness
of reading instruction may be due to teachers’ lack of understanding of active reading
components, as presented among other issues here. Reading specific challenges and resource
specific challenges, as presented in this study, compound an already complex social context
where learners come from varied linguistic backgrounds. Added to this complexity, teachers’
inability to teach directed reading instruction successfully and with a wide repertoire of skills
and strategies to monitor learners’ reading progress puts learners at a double deficit – not
only are they socially at a disadvantage in attempts to make academic progress, but they are
also at an instructional disadvantage in being taught basic reading skills such as decoding
ineffectively – skills that could have ensured early success and ultimately academic progress and achievement in later grades.
Leerderprestasie in geletterdheid in die vroeë grade in Suid-Afrika bly laag wanneer dit gemeet
word aan ’n aantal nasionale en internasionale assesseringsprogramme. Hierdie artikel fokus
op vroeë leesbegrip en verskaf bevindinge uit fokusgroeponderhoude met Grondslagfaseonderwysers
oor leespraktyke wat gebruik word wanneer lees in hulpbronbeperkte omgewings
onderrig word.
Onderwysers getuig oor hoe hulle die onderrig van lees ervaar, asook wat hulle uitdagings
en moontlike oplossings is om sukses te verseker. Die huidige studie dui op ’n gebrek aan
leesbegripinstruksie in die vroeë grade. Dit bevestig verder dat onderwysers in staat is om
nuwe woordeskat en klanke in ’n sekere mate bekend te stel, maar hul repertoire om ’n
verskeidenheid begripsvaardighede aan leerders te onderrig, is beperk en min aanduidings dat
leerders met begrip kan lees, word opgemerk. Hierdie studie toon aan dat leesinstruksie in ’n
ontwikkelende, hulpbronbeperkte omgewing, nie bevredigend gedoen word nie.
