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Knowledge and Practice Standards and a Curriculum Framework
Presentation made by the Consolidated Literacy Working Group of PrimTEd to the PrimTEd Annual National Dialogue meeting called by the DHET on 17-18 October 2019 in Kempton Park
National Framework for the Teaching of Reading in African Languages in the Foundation Phase
The framework recognises that although learning to read is very similar across languages, differences in the way languages are structured and in their writing systems (orthographies) influence the reading process. The Framework seeks to help teachers and curriculum specialists understand that the reading approaches and methods on how to teach reading in African languages differs in some ways from English, especially with regard to the early stages of learning to read when children learn how to link letters to sounds, and to use this knowledge to read words (decoding). Currently, the influence of reading approaches used in English is so strong that it overrides the development of reading methods and pedagogies that are appropriate for African languages. The Framework unpacks the teaching of decoding skills (phonological awareness, phonics) and dense morphology that pose challenges for young children in the early stages of learning to read in African languages. The Framework emphasises that the morphological, phonological and orthographical features of African languages should be factored in the design of reading curricula, the development of teacher training programmes and assessment for African languages.
New Readers Publishers - easy readers for adults
New Readers Publishers develops and supports adult literacy and basic English Second Language skills by producing easy to read books in all South African languages for the entertainment and education of adult new readers. Many of the books are also read and enjoyed by children. New Readers Publishers is a non-profit publishing project originally started in 1991 and housed by the Centre for Adult Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, until 2014. It is now an independent initiative which has made digital versions of all of the New Readers Publishers books available online. The use of these e-versions is free for non-commercial purposes via a Creative Commons Licence (Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivates 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) International licence). New Readers Publishers retains the copyright. The books can be downloaded, printed or read online in pdf format.
PrimTEd Teaching Reading study guides
This is a set of draft study guides for students who are training to teach reading and writing in Primary Schools. They can be used as self-study material and all include study short self-tests for each unit in each study guide. The full set is still in development and six study guides are currently available.
Introduction to teaching reading [PrimTEd Teaching Reading study guide 1]
This is a short introductory overview of the teaching of reading. It introduces some of the terminology and key concepts associated with literacy and the teaching of reading. Outlines are provided of the key processes in learning to read and of the necessary components of effective reading instruction programmes. It includes short self-tests for each unit in the Guide. As an introductory overview it does not provide specific instruction on the techniques used in teaching reading and writing, whether for home language or in a first additional language.
Teaching writing [PrimTEd Teaching Reading study guide 7]
This is a short introduction to the development of writing in initial literacy teaching. It describes the components of teaching writing, including handwriting, spelling, genres and the making of multimodal texts.
Decoding in reading [SIRP/PrimTEd Teaching Reading study guide 3]
This study guide is about decoding – about developing the ability to transform written text into spoken words in order to gain access to the meaning of a text. Unless a child is able to convert the written text into spoken language, she or he cannot decode the message behind the words. Children are not born with an innate ability to read and write, they have to be taught to do that. To decode a text means applying a knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly sound-out and pronounce written words. In other words it is deciphering the alphabetic code into language. To encode is the reverse process of converting spoken words into written text. This guide provides an introduction to the key elements of decoding in reading, namely phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, phonics, morphological awareness and oral reading fluency. Note that this study guide has focused on decoding in Sesotho and isiZulu, though it will be useful for all teachers of literacy in South Africa's official languages. The study guide is an adaptation of Sesotho and isiZulu Reading Project (SIRP) material
Zenex Fundamentals in Early Childhood Development – Communications
Zenex Foundation materials designed by SAIDE and Woz’obona on Fundamentals for Communications at NQF Level One, in English. It uses a problem centred approach. The materials were originally designed for ECD practitioners studying at NQF Level 1 (meeting the requirements of five NQF level 1 unit standards to gain a qualification in Communications (Unit Standards 12462, 119641, 119631, 12469, and 119636) to gain a part qualification in Early Child Development at NQF Level 1). The course comprises learner and trainer materials.
Zenex The Expert Reading Teacher course materials
A set of materials designed to teach Foundation Phase teachers how to teach reading. They are high quality materials developed by academics in collaboration with teachers. This collaboration resulted in materials that are highly structured, using a systematic approach to the teaching of reading. The materials address various aspects of the reading process, including language concepts and vocabulary building. They are written in English, but include a comprehensive list of literacy concepts explained in three languages, namely, English, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
Reading comprehension in high-poverty schools: how should it be taught and how well does it work
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.
The End of Illiteracy? The Holy Grail of Clackmannanshire
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.
Why can’t a teacher be more like a scientist? Science, Pseudoscience and the Art of Teaching
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.
Ending the Reading Wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert
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.
Foundation and Intermediate Phase B.Ed. programmes at selected South African universities: languages and literacies components
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.
Initial Teacher Education Research Project
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.
My fish died and I flushed him down the toilet”: Children disrupt preservice teachers’ understandings of “appropriate” picture books for young children
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.
CITE-ITEL
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.
Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS)
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.
Bringing literacy home. Family Literacy Conference Proceedings. 19 - 21 September 2005, Pietermaritzburg
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.
Foundation Phase Matters: Language and Learning in South African Rural Classrooms
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.
The science is clear about 'mother-tongue' education. So why are we attacking it?
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.
Back to basics: comparing the orthographic, phonic and grammatical features of English and African languages to improve literacy teaching
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.
Accessing Foundation Phase literacy resources in all our official languages, focusing on African languages
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).
The Threshold Project
A major study conducted in the late 1980s into the nature of the language and learning difficulties experienced by Grade Five learners when the medium of instruction changed from mother tongue to English.
Changing how literacy is taught: evidence on synthetic phonics
This is an evaluation study of the national change in education policy in England that saw a refocusing of teaching of reading around synthetic phonics. This was a low cost intervention that went through a pilot and then a national rollout. The study shows in particular how this change helped narrow the gap between disadvantaged and other learners.