Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2011
A description and appraisal of a reading comprehension programme that was aimed at Grade 6 learners and teachers and implemented in different ways in two high-poverty primary schools where reading levels were very low. The results of the comprehension programme for the learners' reading abilities in their home language, Northern Sotho, and in English are reported and lessons learned identified.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy, Intermediate
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 1999
Essentially a study of the initial stages of the rise of synthetic phonics as the preferred approach to teaching reading in the United Kingdom. It is useful because it gives an account of the Clackmannanshire study of 1992/93 and other studies that provided the crucial empirical evidence that synthetic phonics was far superior to the analytic phonics/whole language approach and, crucially, worked well with both advantaged and disadvantaged children.
Keywords: Language, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2017
A paper describes the core elements that we have found to improve early grade literacy instruction and learner outcomes: the approach to teaching, the availability of quality, relevant learner materials, the effective use of instructional time, the use of formative assessment to guide instruction, and provision of instruction in the most effective language. This paper focuses on the acquisition of literacy in alphabetic and alphasyllabic languages in the early primary years (most typically, academic levels 1 through 3) and the kinds of exposures, instruction, and support learners need to become fully literate. These are the elements of a literacy program that can be taught, that should be present in teaching and learning materials and in teacher trainings, and that relate specifically to what happens in a classroom.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2017
A paper describes the core elements that we have found to improve early grade literacy instruction and learner outcomes: the approach to teaching, the availability of quality, relevant learner materials, the effective use of instructional time, the use of formative assessment to guide instruction, and provision of instruction in the most effective language. This paper focuses on the acquisition of literacy in alphabetic and alphasyllabic languages in the early primary years (most typically, academic levels 1 through 3) and the kinds of exposures, instruction, and support learners need to become fully literate. These are the elements of a literacy program that can be taught, that should be present in teaching and learning materials and in teacher trainings, and that relate specifically to what happens in a classroom.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2013
Discusses the disputes internationally and in Australia on how reading is taught and raises the important issue of the lack of impact of research on teaching practice.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2008
A summary of a key chapter on literacy acquisition from Helena Abadzi’s well known book.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2010
Short paper arguing that failure to learn reading is the primary reason for repetition in the early grades. Students cannot learn from books until they can read fluently, and they may even be unable to solve verbal problems written in maths books. Abadzi argues that by by the end of grade 1 students should be able to read very common words, albeit haltingly. By the end of grade 2 at the latest, students should be reading simple texts fluently, at a rate of at least 60 words per minute.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2021
This annotated bibliography was compiled by Claire Biesman-Simons and Kerryn Dixon with Elizabeth Pretorius as part of the Primary Teacher Education Project (PrimTEd). It gives a summary account of South African research that has been done on reading in English as a First Additional Language from 2007 to 2021. It comprises a set of annotated entries, mainly research articles from accredited journals and also lists several other sources closely related to reading in EFAL. Originally compiled in 2018 and 2019 and then revised in 2021, it is designed in such a way that new entries can be added to it as new research emerges.
Keywords: EFAL, Reading
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2010
This literature review records that learning to read reinforces and modifies certain fundamental abilities, such as verbal and visual memory, phonological awareness, and visuospatial and visuomotor skills and that that literacy and education influence the pathways used by the brain for problem-solving. It includes an interesting finding that learning to read in adulthood is a process supported by different brain structures from the ones used when learning occurs at the usual age in childhood.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2008
The article provides a useful examination of the distinction between science and pseudoscience, outlines the characteristics of good educational research and exposes that much educational thinking, including much special education, exhibits the core values of pseudoscience. It provides some interesting examples from Australia in the field of reading instruction.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy, Research
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2018
An exceedingly thorough and comprehensive up to date review of the science of learning to read, spanning from children’s earliest alphabetic skills through to the fluent word recognition and skilled text comprehension characteristic of expert readers. Phonics is highlighted as central to learning in a writing system such as English but other research is reviewed on what else children need to learn to become expert readers. Consideration is also given to how these findings might be translated into effective classroom practice.
Keywords: Language, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 1998
Study showing that literate people have a different functional organization of the human brain and that learning the visual representation of language (and the rules for matching phonemes and graphemes) develops new language processing possibilities.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2019
To inform the work of the Primary Teacher Education Project the Literacy Working Group conducted an audit of language and literacy teacher education at ten South African universities in the 2017 to 2018. In addition an analysis was made of the Bachelor of Education modules taught in sixteen universities. The final report was compiled by Professor Yvonne Reed of the University of the Witwatersrand.
Keywords: Language, Literacy, Curriculum, Initial teacher education
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2018
Full version of an article published in a condensed form by The Conversation on 26 February 2018 as "South Africa’s reading crisis is a cognitive catastrophe".
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2019
Excellent overview of research and practice in South African literacy education in schools. It also looks at current state and NGO programme and project interventions and makes a number of recommendations for research, development and action.
Keywords: Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2016
The ITERP project – a collaboration between the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), the Department of Basic Education (DBE), the Education Deans' Forum, and JET Education Services – was to gather up-to-date information on the state of initial teacher education (ITE) in South Africa and to examine the extent to which the ITE programmes offered by universities are adequately preparing teachers to teach in South African schools.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy, Teacher eduction and training
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2018
A study of the relationship between pre-service teachers’ conceptions of children and of picture books in the context of little material on picture books in curricula for teacher education.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2017
CITE-TEL is a web-based resource, the Critical, Interactive, Transparent & Evolving literature review in Initial Teacher Education in Literacy, hosted by the University of Texas at Austin. It seeks to list the research literature that is focused on initial teacher preparation in literacy and provides a forum for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to engage with this growing body of research.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy, Initial teacher education
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2017
A large scale study of the influence of the home and community literacy environments in Asia and Africa that found that a modest but consistent relationship between students’ home literacy environments and reading scores, and a strong relationship between reading gains and participation in community reading activities.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2017
This research study sought to examine the results of three interventions to improve teachers’ instructional practice – one with block training twice a year (which included provision of scripted lesson plans, materials and training), another with the same block training and ongoing support from a reading coach, and a third involving parents. The intervention with reading coaches was found to be a critical component in the persistence of gains.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy, Primary
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Proceedings on this first national conference on family literacy in South Africa has some excellent papers that look into the near invisible world of family literacy practices and explore the developing communities of practice of educators engaged in family literacy projects.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2017
The study looks at teacher instructional practice, learner performance outcomes, and intervention process design. It was designed to help develop an instructional toolkit for Grades R to 3 in the Eastern Cape context. The report concludes with an identification and of the binding constraints in the system and presents proposals for key interventions that could contribute to the transformation of foundation phase instructional practice on a wider system scale.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy, Foundation Phase
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2018
Popular article from the United States of America that argues that, thought scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught, many educators and teacher educators do not known the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As as a result, millions of children are set up to fail.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2019
Article noting the contradiction between empirical research evidence backed up by the constitutional support for mother-tongue instruction with the current education system’s failure to teach students to read and write and its prioritization of English.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2015
A brief survey of North American teaching of reading research.
Keywords: Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2020
Presentation made to a PrimTEd seminar in February 2020 illustrating some of the differences and similarities in the orthography, phonics and syntax between the Nguni, Sotho and English languages that are important for teachers to have knowledge of when they are teaching languages.
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2020
Presentation made to a PrimTEd seminar in February 2020 that outlines the Molteno Institute’s work on graded readers basic on the phonics of South African languages as well as briefly describing other resources (ZENEX, EGRS 2 and the Department of Basic Education’s new National Framework for the Teaching of Reading in African Languages in the Foundation Phase).
Keywords: Language, Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2020
These draft standards were prepared by members of the Consolidated Literacy Working Group of the Primary Teacher Education Project (PrimTEd). These have been discussed within the group, examined at a national consultation, and revised accordingly. They are now open for a further consultation and it must be emphasized that they are draft standards, standards are only truly such when they are recognized by the appropriate authority or authorities. They are standards that apply specifically to initial language and literacy teacher education with a specific focus on: • Developing new graduate teachers’ ability to teach literacy in African languages as home or additional languages, with a special focus on reading and writing; • English as a First Additional language with a special focus on reading and writing; and on using English as the medium of instruction across the curriculum • Developing new graduate teachers’ ability to teach literacy in English as a home or first additional language in multilingual contexts.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy, Primary, Standards
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2019
Critique of whole language and balanced literacy approaches to teaching reading. Has a rich set of URLs to useful sources.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy
Author: aitchisonjjw@gmail.com
Published: 2017
A commentary on the evidence coming out of evidence-based practices in early reading instruction and intervention in low- and middle income countries In Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Keywords: Reading, Literacy