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EVALUATION OF THE ZENEX FUNDED READ

MOTHER TONGUE LITERACY PROGRAMME

Evaluation Report

December 2006

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TABLE OF CONTENTSACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.....................................................................................................5

ACRONYMS.........................................................................................................................6

Chapter One: Introduction & Background........................................................................71.1 Background to the funders – the Zenex Foundation.............................................81.2 Background to the implementers – the READ Educational Trust..........................81.3 Background to the READ Literacy Project............................................................91.4 Purpose of the evaluation....................................................................................101.5 Structure of the report.........................................................................................10

Chapter Two: Evaluation Approach and Methodology.................................................112.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................112.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................122.2 Evaluation Components......................................................................................122.3 Research design.................................................................................................13

2.3.1 Materials evaluation..........................................................................................132.3.2 Paper and pencil tests......................................................................................132.3.3 Classroom observations...................................................................................142.3.4 Individual reading tests.....................................................................................142.3.5 Review of supplementary reports by READ.....................................................14

2.4 Sample................................................................................................................172.5 Data collection methods and instruments...........................................................18

2.6 Process of data collection...................................................................................20

Chapter Three: Materials Evaluation...............................................................................213.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................223.2 Conceptualising reading – How do young children learn to read?......................22

3.2.1 Phonemic/phonological awareness.................................................................233.2.2 The role of phonics..........................................................................................243.2.3 Developing fluency...........................................................................................243.2.4 The level of difficulty of texts............................................................................253.2.5 Developing vocabulary.....................................................................................263.2.6 Developing reading comprehension................................................................263.2.7 The social dimensions of literacy – literacy as a social practice......................273.2.8 Visual literacy...................................................................................................273.2.9 Representation and text...................................................................................273.2.10 Motivation........................................................................................................28

3.3 What constitutes adequate reading instruction in Grade 1?................................283.4 The curriculum requirements for teaching initial literacy in Grade 1...................293.5 Evaluation of the READ materials......................................................................29

3.5.1 The structure of the programme......................................................................293.5.2 Educational principles underpinning the programme.......................................303.5.3 Coverage of the national curriculum................................................................303.5.4 The components of the programme.................................................................313.5.5 The story books (‘little books’).........................................................................323.5.6 The big books..................................................................................................333.5.7 The charts........................................................................................................343.5.8 The learner’s workbook....................................................................................343.5.9 The teacher’s guide.........................................................................................353.5.10 The content of units and lessons....................................................................363.5.11 The language in which the materials written..................................................40

3.6 Strengths and weaknesses of the READ materials.............................................413.6.1 Strengths..........................................................................................................41

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3.6.2 Weaknesses....................................................................................................423.7 Conclusion and recommendations......................................................................433.8 References.............................................................................................................44

Chapter Four: Findings From The School Visits...........................................................464.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................474.2 Findings from the principal interview...................................................................47

4.2.1 Section A: Conditions conducive to work........................................................474.2.2 Section B: Interview with principals from project schools................................49

4.3 Findings from the teacher interview (TINT 1)......................................................514.4 Findings from the classroom observations..........................................................604.5 Concluding remarks.............................................................................................70

Chapter Five: Learner Performance................................................................................715.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................715.2 Instrument............................................................................................................725.3 Test administration...............................................................................................735.4 Results of learner testing.....................................................................................74

5.4.1 Group comparisons.........................................................................................745.4.2 Section-by-section comparisons.....................................................................755.4.3 District comparisons........................................................................................845.4.4 Gender comparisons.......................................................................................855.4.5 School-by-school comparisons.......................................................................86

Chapter Six: Summary and Conclusions............................................................................906.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 92 6.2 Materials evaluation ............................................................................................. 92 6.3 Classroom observations and interviews .............................................................. 92 6.4 Learner testing ..................................................................................................... 94 6.5 Did the READ mother tongue literacy project meet its objectives? ..................... 94

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Evaluation components......................................................................................................12Table 2: Total READ population numbers in Eastern Cape..............................................................17Table 3: Total number of schools which participated in the learner testing......................................17Table 4: Total number of schools where classroom observations, interviews and document reviews were conducted................................................................................................................................ 17Table 5: Total number of learners who performed the oral reading test...........................................17Table 6: Total number of learners who wrote the pencil and paper tests.........................................18Table 7: Instruments, data type and respondents related to the different evaluation components...18Table 8: Numbers of instruments completed and returned by school...............................................19Table 9: Schools visited for classroom observations and interviews................................................47Table 10: Description of how teachers use materials.......................................................................56Table 11: Number of materials provided to schools by READ..........................................................56Table 12: Total number of assessment tasks recorded....................................................................63Table 13: Topics that are covered in the learner books....................................................................64Table 14: Assessment standards for LO3 (a)...................................................................................64Table 15: Assessment standards for LO3 (b)...................................................................................65Table 16: Assessment standards for LO3 (c)...................................................................................66Table 17: Assessment standards for LO3 (d)...................................................................................67Table 18: Assessment standards for LO3 (e)…………………………………….................................68Table 19: Assessment standards for LO3 (f)....................................................................................69Table 20: Literacy test section descriptions......................................................................................73Table 21: Overall mean percentage scores – comparison between project and control school groups.............................................................................................................................................. 74

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Table 22: Overall mean percentage scores per section – comparison between project and control school groups................................................................................................................................... 75Table 23: Frequency of scores – Section 1.....................................................................................75Table 24: Difficulty values – Section 1.............................................................................................77Table 25: Frequency of scores – Section 2.....................................................................................77Table 26: Difficulty values – Section 2.............................................................................................78Table 27: Frequency of scores – Section 3.....................................................................................78Table 28: Difficulty values – Section 3.............................................................................................78Table 29: Frequency of scores – Section 4.....................................................................................80Table 30: Difficulty values – Section 4.............................................................................................81Table 31: Frequency of scores – Section 5.....................................................................................82Table 32: Difficulty values – Section 5.............................................................................................82Table 33: Frequency of scores – Section 5.....................................................................................83Table 34: Difficulty values – Section 6.............................................................................................84Table 35: Overall mean percentage scores per district....................................................................84Table 36: Overall mean percentage scores per gender....................................................................85Table 37: Monitoring statistics reported for period July to September 2006.....................................94

LIST OF GRAPHS

Graph 1: The manner in which researchers were received by schools............................................48Graph 2: Discipline at schools..........................................................................................................48Graph 3: Learner presence in classrooms........................................................................................49Graph 4: Years of teaching experience............................................................................................51Graph 5: Attendance in project training............................................................................................52Graph 6: On-site support from READ...............................................................................................53Graph 7: Foundation Phase peer support on READ/ZENEX materials............................................54Graph 8: Peer support in project schools.........................................................................................54Graph 9: Attitude towards in-school support.....................................................................................55Graph 10: Frequency of using READ/ZENEX materials...................................................................55Graph 11: Access to READ/ZENEX materials..................................................................................57Graph 12: Improvement of mathematics teaching............................................................................59Graph 13: Form of management feedback.......................................................................................61Graph 14: Management feedback....................................................................................................61Graph 15: Educator materials development.....................................................................................62Graph 16: Level of detail in year plans.............................................................................................63Graph 17: Schools using visual cues to make meaning on LO3 AS.................................................65Graph 18: Schools using role-plays for reading................................................................................66Graph 19: Schools where meaning of written text is made...............................................................67Graph 20: Schools where letters and words are recognised and meaning of written text is made...68Graph 21: Schools where letters develop phonic awareness...........................................................69Graph 22: Schools where letters read for information and enjoyment..............................................69Graph 23: Overall mean percentage scores – comparison between project and control school groups.............................................................................................................................................. 74Graph 24: Difficulty values – Section 1............................................................................................77Graph 25: Difficulty values – Section 2............................................................................................78Graph 26: Difficulty values – Section 3............................................................................................78Graph 27: Difficulty values – Section 4............................................................................................81Graph 28: Difficulty values – Section 5............................................................................................82Graph 29: Difficulty values – Section 6............................................................................................84Graph 30: Overall mean percentage scores per district...................................................................85Graph 31: Overall mean percentage scores per gender...................................................................86Graph 32: Overall mean percentage scores per project schools......................................................87Graph 33: Overall mean percentage scores per C1 schools............................................................88Graph 34: Overall mean percentage scores per C2 schools............................................................89

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

JET Education Services gratefully acknowledges the contributions made by the evaluation team:

To Dr Denise Barry for her Literacy and evaluation expertise and for assisting in the writing of this report.

To the researchers, Anastacia Mangaliso and Nosipho Masimini, for their commitment and dedication to the data collection process.

Dr Nick Taylor for his technical and supportive guidance provided during the planning of the study.

Dr Sarah Murray, of Rhodes University, for conducting the materials evaluation.

Appreciation also to Mr Bertus Mathee and Ms Debbie Botha from the READ Educational Trust in their support of and cooperation during the evaluation process.

This report would also not have been possible without the co-operation of the school principals, educators, subject advisors and learners. The support and cooperation shown by these participants during the research process was invaluable. For that the evaluation team is grateful.

Special mention must be made of the vision and commitment of the staff at Zenex Foundation, especially Ms Janet Marx, who made this study possible.

Carla PereiraProject Manager

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ACRONYMS

AIDS Acquired Immunodeficiency SyndromeBICS Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills C1 Control school(s) – level 1 C2 Control school(s) – level 2CALP Cognitive Academic Language ProficiencyDO District OfficialDoE Department of EducationEC Eastern Cape [province]HIV Human Immunodeficiency VirusIEP Integrated Education ProgrammeJET JET Education ServicesLA Learning AreaLO Learning OutcomeLOLT Language of Learning and TeachingMax MaximumMCQ Multiple Choice QuestionMin MinimumNCS National Curriculum StatementNo. NumberPIRLS Progress in International Reading Literacy StudyREAD READ Educational TrustSGB School Governing BodySMT School Management TeamSPSS Statistical Package for the Social SciencesStd StandardUSAID United States Agency for International Developmentvs Versus

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CHAPTER ONE:

INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND

Chapter One: Introduction & Background

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1.1 Background to the funders – the Zenex Foundation

The Zenex Foundation is an independent, South African, non-profit, non-governmental organization that focuses on education and has been operating since 1987. The Foundation’s mission is to develop human resources through the provision of financial resources and proactive engagement with funded projects and their stakeholders. The goal is to educate and empower historically deprived learners through education so that they can take advantage of new opportunities and resources.

The Zenex Foundation has the following main objectives:

To focus resources and expertise on areas of critical national need where the Foundation can make a significant contribution;

To address inequalities; To support excellence in education; To increase the impact of its interventions through proactively engaging with

projects and their stakeholders using partnerships and holistic approaches; To assess the implementation and impact of its projects through evaluation

and research; To minimize the impact of HIV and AIDS on human resource development in

South Africa; To significantly increase the pool of people with mathematical and scientific

competencies in the country; and To develop the expertise of the Foundation in its focus areas.

In line with these objectives, the Zenex Foundation offered a grant to the READ Educational Trust to develop mother tongue Literacy materials in isiXhosa and isiZulu for the Grade 1 level.

JET Education Services was appointed to conduct an external summative evaluation of this project, also known as the READ Literacy Project.

1.2 Background to the implementers – the READ Educational Trust

READ Educational Trust (or READ) is a non-profit organization registered as an 18A Trust and has been operating in the field of Literacy for the past 25 years. READ was formed in 1979 in response to community concerns over the lack of reading and library facilities in Black communities. Initially READ was mainly involved in the collection and distribution of books and began working in schools in 1980. However, given the lack of contextually relevant material for reading and Literacy teaching, READ later became involved in producing its own materials.

Over the years, READ’s established infrastructure to manage and implement both large scale and smaller projects in the field on Literacy and teacher management is widely recognized and are operational in all nine provinces in South Africa. Their dedicated materials unit have also contributed towards improved Literacy and reading.

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1.3 Background to the READ Literacy Project

In XXX, READ partnered with the Business Trust on the Learning for Living Project which was implement in 500 primary schools across the nine provinces. During this project, READ noted that the existing material available in South Africa for home language Literacy teaching and learning are inadequate. This is reflected in the poor Literacy levels in Grade 1 observed in classrooms throughout the country. This in turn has an effect on the acquisition of English, as strong Literacy skills in one language are usually linked to successes in other languages and learning areas (see chapter 3).

In response to this, READ approached the Zenex Foundation to fund the development of mother tongue Literacy materials in isiXhosa and isiZulu for the Grade 1 level and to train Grade 1 teachers on how to use these materials in their classrooms. Their proposal was successful and the Zenex Foundation granted them funds in 2005 to develop and pilot these materials and training courses in 50 schools in Eastern Cape and 50 schools in Kwa-Zulu Natal over 2006.

A complication with this initiative is that it is being implemented in the same schools in which the Integrated Education Programme (IEP)1 is operating. This complication has been taken into account in the design of the current evaluation where the respective effects of two distinct approaches to teacher training will be compared. We elaborate on these issues in the Research Design section.

The design of the READ Literacy Project breaks with what has become the norm in South African teacher- and school development projects, where, largely for reasons of cost, a cascade model is adopted. This is the model adopted by the IEP programme, where Master Teachers are trained to cascade the project training, which includes training in Literacy for Foundation Phase teachers, to teachers in 10 schools each. In contrast, the READ Literacy Project will work directly with all Grade 1 teachers in the selected project schools.

READ is working with schools in the Cofimvaba, Queenstown and Lady Frere districts of the Eastern Cape and in schools in the Nkandla district of KwaZulu-Natal. The evaluation only looked at the Eastern Cape element of the programme2, specifically in the Queenstown and Lady Frere districts.

The project results are that:

a world class, book based Language and Literacy Programme in IsiXhosa and IsiZulu for Grade 1 be produced;

these developed materials be piloted in a group of schools in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal and would be available to other schools at a low price;

75-100 teachers in the pilot group will be able to use the materials to teach Language and Literacy effectively in either isiXhosa or isiZulu;

The pilot group teachers’ ability will be enhanced by 10-15% over and above any improvement to the IEP project;

1 The IEP is a 5-year programme funded by USAID, and is a continuation and expansion of the work of the District Development and Support Project, which ran for 3 years. The IEP is focusing on training principals and SMTs in school management and teachers in Literacy, Numeracy and Science, throughout target primary schools. 2 Discussions with Dr Sarah Murray indicate that, as the same methodology was used in the development of both the isiXhosa and isiZulu sets of materials, one could draw general conclusions from an analysis of one set, and have fairly reliable account of the efficacy of both sets.

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Approximately 4000 learners in the pilot group will attain the entire Grade 1 RNCS Home Language Assessment standards in their Home Language in all the Learning Outcomes set for language;

Each learner will be able to read all 20 books in the programme and will be able to interpret the text and pictures in a meaningful way;

Learners will show a 10-15% enhancement regarding language ability as defined by the RNCS; and

Long term, the learners will show a 10-20% enhancement in English, Mathematics and Science.

1.4 Purpose of the evaluation

The purpose of the external evaluation is to inform both the funders (the Zenex Foundation) and implementers (READ) as to whether the project has met its intended outcomes and impacts while at the same time provide summative information to implementers to improve its services and facilitate decision making by the READ and the Zenex Foundation.

The evaluation is guided by 6 main research questions:

How suitable are the READ materials for use in Grade 1 Xhosa-speaking classrooms in terms of language, layout and content?

Is there any discernable difference in the teaching practices between project schools and control schools?

Is there any discernable difference in the learner performance between project schools and control schools?

What level of service delivery has taken place? What level of satisfaction exists with service delivery by READ? How do managers and teachers perceive the changes (if any) that have been

brought about by the project?

1.5 Structure of the report

The report has been structured in such a way that it mimics the evaluation components (see next section). The report has been divided into the following sections:

Introduction (Chapter 1) Methodology (Chapter 2) Evaluation of the materials (Chapter 3) Teaching practices (Chapter 4) Learner performance (Chapter 5) Summary and conclusions (Chapter 6).

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CHAPTER TWO:

EVALUATION APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

Chapter Two: Evaluation Approach and Methodology

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2.1 Introduction

This section of the report looks at the evaluation components, the research design, the research process, the sample visited and the instruments used.

2.2 Evaluation Components

The READ Literacy Project evaluation contains a number of different elements, each of which is linked by an approach to evaluation and impact measurement which informed the study. The three main elements of the evaluation were:

1. Materials: an assessment of materials in terms of their suitability for use in Grade 1 Xhosa-speaking classrooms and includes issues of language, layout and content.

2. Teaching practices: the extent to which the methods taught on the READ training courses are being implemented in target classrooms.

3. Impact on learning: The impact of the programme on the reading proficiency of Grade 1 learners in a sample of target schools.

Each component utilised a slightly different methodological approach and so it is necessary to discuss the data collection and analysis methodology used in each component (see Table 1 below for a brief summary).

Table 1: Evaluation components

Evaluation Component

Data Source

Data Analysis

Materials Evaluation of a set of mother tongue materials designed specifically for this intervention:- Big Book- Pupil Workbook- Teachers’ Guide

Desk-top exercise of READ materials (during Feb to June 06).

Teaching Practices

- Classroom observations

- Teacher lesson plans

- Interview with teachers

- Interview with principals

- Interview with trainers

Comparative quantitative and qualitative analysis of teaching practices between project and control schools.

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Impact on learning

- Paper and pencil Grade 1 Literacy test

- Reading test- Learner

workbooks

Comparative quantitative analysis of learner scores between project and control schools.

2.3 Research design

2.3.1 Materials evaluation

Ideally the materials evaluation should have been undertaken before the printing of the materials so that the evaluation findings could have been used to improve the books (i.e., Big books, learner workbooks and teacher guides) where necessary. Unfortunately, the Big Books had already been printed by November 2005 (prior to the appointment of the evaluators). Nevertheless they will be assessed along with the other materials in early 2006. This was conducted by Dr Sarah Murray, linguist expert based at Rhodes University during February 2006 to June 2006. This component of the evaluation took longer than expected because there was a delay in completing the teacher guides by READ. The focus of the materials evaluation was on the following factors:

The physical quality and durability of the materials The relevance of the materials to teaching Literacy in isiXhosa at the Grade 1

level The ease with which teachers would be able to interpret and use the

materials The relevance of the materials to the curriculum (as stated in the Revised

National Curriculum Statements – RNCS) and the pedagogy favoured by Outcomes Based Education (OBE)

The quality of the materials

The design of the other two components – Teaching Practices and Impact on Learning – is shown diagrammatically in Figure 1 – was conducted using paper and pencil tests, classroom observations, interviews and document reviews and individual reading tests.

2.3.2 Paper and pencil tests

The tests were administered to a sample of 24 project schools – 13 from Queenstown and 11 from Lady Frere.

Two sets of control schools were chosen: one from IEP schools which do not benefit from Zenex/READ (C1), and one which is not part of either programme (C2). Thus the effects of Zenex/READ can be compared with the IEP intervention and with schools which are the subject of no intervention. Each control set will consist of 4 schools, as detailed in Figure 1.

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The paper and pencil Literacy tests will be administered to Grade 1 pupils in the fourth quarter of 2006 in:

o 24 sample Zenex/READ schoolso 4 sample C1 schools o 4 sample C2 schools in September 2006.

In schools were no classroom observations and interviews were conducted, twenty-five (25) learners were chosen at random across all Grade 1 pupils in each school. In schools were classroom observations, reading tests, document reviews and interviews took place, all learners for the teacher who was observed were tested.

These results will be used to compare the reading and writing proficiency of Zenex/READ pupils with those receiving the IEP intervention and those receiving no Literacy intervention.

2.3.3 Classroom observations

A subset of 6 Zenex/READ schools and 4 from each of C1 and C2 were selected from the above samples. One teacher in each of the schools will be selected at random for observation. The efficacy of their methodology in teaching reading and writing was observed. This was supplemented by short interviews and an analysis of their planning documents, assessment records and workbooks of 3 pupils.

In all 6 teachers were observed in project schools and 4 in each set of Control schools.

2.3.4 Individual reading tests

Three to six pupils were selected from the classes of each of the teachers observed. So as to maximise their comparability across the three samples, these children were chosen around the mode of the class performance, according to the teachers’ assessment record. Individual reading tests will be administered to these children. Learners were required to read from one of the books present in the classroom. In project schools, the READ learner books were used whilst in IEP and control schools, textbooks were used as they did not have access to other books.

2.3.5 Review of supplementary reports by READ

In addition to the components listed above, all information regarding this project (i.e., background, goals and objectives, implementation plans, proposal, progress reports and project indicators) was forwarded by READ to JET to supplement the information already collected. The following was submitted:

Proposal for funding Trainer’s checklist which are records information per term as per the project

indicators. Trainers’ monitoring form: Grade 1 Home Language which requires trainers to

tick whether charts are displayed in the classroom, sight words are displayed, teacher checklists are completed, relevant units are completed by learners, and that all children can read the book and sight words relevant to the Unit being covered. This is done for all 10 units.

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Progress report dated April 2005 Progress report dated July 2005 Progress report dated October 2005 Progress report dated February 2006 Progress report dated May 2006 Progress report dated October/November 2006 Audit report dated May 2006

The existing progress reports were found to be clear and concise and well–written. The checklists, which are based on project indicators, were clear and easy to complete. These checklists were used by JET in development of the evaluation instruments so that they are aligned to the READ indicators.

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Figure 1: Evaluation Design

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SCHOOLS WITH NO READ INTERVENTION

IEP/READ SCHOOLS

ZENEX/READ SCHOOLS

Sample project schools

Control schools:

C1

Control schools:

C2

24 schools(12 in Queenstown and 12 in Lady Frere)+/- 600 children tested



Paper and Pencil Testing:Estimated 25 pupils in Grade 1 classes.

Classroom observations, document reviews and interviews

6 schools(3 in Queenstown and 3 in Lady Frere)6 teachers observed



Individual reading test: ask learners to read a passage and score on basis of indicator list

6 learners per school visited for classroom observations i.e., 36 learners



2.4 Sample

The READ Literacy Project is being implemented in 50 schools in the Eastern Cape. The following table tabulates the total number of schools per district (See Appendix X for list of schools per district).

Table 2: Total READ population numbers in Eastern Cape

Lady Frere Queenstown Cofimvaba Sterkspruit King Williams Town

11 14 8 12 5

It was not possible to visit and evaluate all 50 schools. As a result, the evaluators opted to conduct the evaluation in 24 of the project schools and 8 control schools, working only in the Lady Frere and Queenstown3 districts. In total, 32 schools were visited as part of the evaluation. Tables 3 and 4 depict the total number of schools visited for each evaluation component.

Table 3: Total number of schools which participated in the learner testing

Queenstown Lady Frere TotalBoth IEP and READ 13 11 24IEP only (C1) 2 2 4None (C2) 2 2 4Total 17 15 32

Table 4: Total number of schools where classroom observations, interviews and document reviews were conducted


Tables 5 and 6 tabulate the number of learners who participated in the reading test and the paper and pencil tests.

Table 5: Total number of learners who performed the oral reading test


Table 6: Total number of learners who wrote the pencil and paper tests

3 The proposed areas were Lady Frere and Cofimvaba. However, the total number of schools in the Cofimvaba area did not meet the requirements – there were too few schools. In order not to reduce the sample size, we recommended that Cofimvaba be replaced by Queenstown schools where the number of schools would be sufficient to meet the sampling numbers required (n=32).

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2.5 Data collection methods and instruments

In collecting data, the researchers sought to gather data that would be most reliable and valid. In order to do this, documentary evidence was used to validate and cross-check interview data. The interviews collected a mixture of self-reported descriptions of behaviours (checked against documentary evidence), respondents’ perceptions of changes in schools and their responses to the project. Table 2 below summarises the range of instruments that were used and the nature of the respondents.

Table 7: Instruments, data type and respondents related to the different evaluation components

Instrument name

Nature of data collected

Respondent Project components

School principal interview(PINT)

Individual semi-structured interview

with the school principals.

10 principals(6 from project schools and 4

from control schools)

Teaching practices and

impact on learning

Classroom observatio

n(COBS)

Narrative description of lesson completed by

observer with the NCS as a guide.

Completed by researcher, but focus is on the teacher

observed.10 Grade 1 teachers observed(6 from project schools and 4



impact on learning

Classroom delivery review form

(CDR)

Closed responses that summarise lesson

observation using the NCS guidelines.

Documentary analysis of key documents – curriculum planning, assessment records, learner workbooks.

Completed by researcher, but focus is on the teacher

observed. 10 Grade 1 teachers observed(6 from project schools and 4



curriculum coverage

Teacher interview 1

(project schools)(TINT 1)

Individual semi-structured interview with the teachers in project schools who

were observed.

Grade 1 teachers from project schools who had been

observed.6 Grade 1 teachers were

interviewed

Training and support

participationSatisfaction

levels

Teacher interview 2(TINT 2)

Individual semi-structured interview

with the teachers who were observed.

Teacher who had been observed.

6 Grade 1 teachers were interview

(6 from project schools and 4 from control schools)

Teaching practices

Trainer interview(TRINT)

Individual semi-structured interview with READ trainer

1 READ trainer Training and support

participation

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Instrument name

Nature of data collected

Respondent Project componentsSatisfaction levels and

impact

Literacy test(LIT)

Pen and paper, 31- item Grade 1 Literacy test. Test was divided into 6 sections which assessed pre-reading

skills, alphabet knowledge, word recognition, and reasoning skills.

Grade 1 learners in 32 schools (24 project and 8 control

schools)

Impact on learning

Reading test

indicator formRIF)

Learners were required to read a book present

in the classroom (textbook, read book, other resources used

by teacher for teaching)

Completed by researcher, but focus is on the learner being

observed and tested. 6 learners per school (36

learners in project schools and 24 learners in control schools)

Impact on learning

Table 8 summarises the number of instruments completed per school.

Table 8: Numbers of instruments completed and returned by school

School PIN

T

CO

BS

CD

R

TIN

T 1

TIN

T 2

TRIN

T

LIT

RIF

Lady FrereIKAMVA JP SCHOOL 1 1 1 1 1 1 26 6MCEULA JS SCHOOL 1 1 1 1 1 33 6NONKANYISO JS SCHOOL 1 1 1 1 1 27 6LADY FRERE JS SCHOOL 1 1 1 - 1 25 6UITKYK JSS 1 1 1 - 1 11 6GLEN ADELAIDE JS SCHOOL4 - - - - - 0 -NOLUTHANDO JS SCHOOL - - - - - 20 -KUNDULU JS SCHOOL - - - - - 10 -XONXA JS SCHOOL - - - - - 15 -MASIZAKHE JP SCHOOL - - - - - 24 -MASIKHULE SP SCHOOL - - - - - 17 -NOZUKO SP SCHOOL - - - - - 27 -NOBUHLE JS SCHOOL - - - - - 14 -MZAMO JS SCHOOL - - - - - 14 -SINETHEMBA SPS - - - - - 11 -QueenstownEMMET MAHONGA JP SCHOOL 1 1 1 1 1 27 6NOZIPHO JP SCHOOL 1 1 1 1 1 23 6SOZIZWE JP SCHOOL 1 1 1 1 1 30 6VUSELELA COMBINED SCHOOL 1 1 1 - 1 21 6PIETER'S DALE 1 1 1 - 1 7 6WHITTLESEA JS SCHOOL - - - - - 33 -MASAKANE JP SCHOOL - - - - - 20 -CHIBINI JP SCHOOL - - - - - 7 -CIMEZILE JS SCHOOL - - - - - 18 -DALUBUZWE JS SCHOOL - - - - - 27 -SHILOH JS SCHOOL - - - - - 28 -

4 This school refused to participate in the study and consequently no learners were tested.

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KHULASOMELELE L/HP SCHOOL - - - - - 25 -THEMBISA P SCHOOL - - - - - 44 -

TOTAL 10 10 10 6 10 1 695 60

2.6 Process of data collection

The proposal said that testing and classroom observations, interviews, etc would be done in September 2006. However, the IEP testing was scheduled to take place at exactly the same time, of which JET is also involved in. To avoid clashes and project conflicts, JET requested to postpone the testing of ZENEX schools by one month, to October 2006. This request was made telephonically and approved by the ZENEX Foundation. The data collection schedule was planned as follows:

In the schools where learner testing, classroom observation, etc will be done, this will be done in week 1 starting 23 October 2006 in both Lady Frere and Queenstown. One school per district will be visited for this component.

The second week will be for schools where only learner testing is happening. The test is about 30 minutes long and therefore it is possible to conduct learner testing in two schools on one day. In other words, researcher A will visit the first school in Lady Frere in the early morning and proceed to the next school, located nearby to the first school in Lady Frere thereafter. The second fieldworker will do the same in Queenstown. (See attached plan in Appendix X).

Two researchers were recruited for the study – one for Lady Frere and one for Queenstown. The researchers who were recruited were specialists in their fields and local to the area received a one-day orientation to the project and the manner in which the research instruments were to be administered. Each researcher was visited at least twice during the data-collection period and monitored by a quality assuror who provided researchers with feedback on their performance and, where necessary, further training and support on the completion of instruments and general data-collection practices. These visits were planned in such a way that both researchers were visited on the first two days so that appropriate standards could be set and confirmed at the outset of the study.

In order to ensure greater consistency between researchers, every effort was made to have the teams of researchers remain constant.

One of the READ trainers was also interviewed. This was done by one of the quality assurors on the afternoon of the first day of school visits. This interview took approximately 40 minutes. The data was captured and analysed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS. In most instances data is presented as the percentage of respondents who gave a certain response or exhibited certain behaviour. Where necessary, the total number of respondents used to generate the percentage has been reduced where a preceding response would have produced a large number of missing or not-applicable responses (for example: when describing the level of detail in curriculum plans, this is based only on the total number of teachers who could produce such plans for review, and not the total number of respondents in the study).

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CHAPTER THREE:

MATERIALS EVALUATION

Chapter Three: Materials Evaluation

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3.1 Introduction

This component of the work was done by Dr Sarah Murray, linguist expert based at Rhodes University. It was hoped that this component of work be done by February 2006, however, owing the delays experienced by READ in completing the materials, the review and subsequent report was only completed in June 20065. Her report begins with an attempt to conceptualise ‘reading’ - to explain how young children learn to read and summarizes what current research is telling us about reading: the importance of phonemic/phonological awareness; the role of phonics; developing fluency; the appropriate level of difficulty of texts; developing vocabulary and reading comprehension. She goes on to summarise the social dimension of literacy; the role of visual literacy; the importance of considering representation and text; and motivation to read and write. Having conceptualised what is involved in becoming literate, she presents a brief summary of what constitutes adequate reading instruction in Grade 1, drawing on the work of Snow et al (1998). The curriculum requirements for teaching literacy in Grade 1 are then summarized (Department of Education 2002, 2003).

This discussion frames the evaluation of the READ materials (Izinga Eliphezulu, Ibanga 1) in terms of their suitability for use in Grade 1 classrooms where isiXhosa is the language of learning and teaching. There follows a detailed evaluation of the READ programme in terms of: its structure; the educational principles underpinning it; coverage of the national curriculum; the components of the programme; the content of units and lessons; and the language in which the materials are written. The evaluation concludes with a brief summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the programme and some recommendations.

3.2 Conceptualising reading – How do young children learn to read?

In the recent past, the question of how best to teach young children to read has been contentious. The debate, which is ideological in nature, has been between those who favour an approach that works from parts to whole (a phonic approach) and those who favour an approach that works from whole to parts (a whole language/whole book approach).6 Traditionally, a phonic approach has worked from the components of sounds, letters, words and sentences, to the understanding of text. The ideological dimension of phonics has arisen because of its association with ‘back to basics’ political interventions in education, and with behaviourism, a learning theory associated with working step-by-step in order to build mastery of a skill. A whole language approach on the other hand, has focused on the global meaning of texts and attended to sounds, letters, words and sentences in the context of the whole. The learning theory underpinning this approach is cognitive; it claims to be progressive and learner-centred.

The debate about how to teach reading has drawn the attention of many teachers away from what is actually involved in learning to read. Amongst researchers,

5 A copy of this report was circulated by email to both the Zenex Foundation (addressed to the project manager: Ms Janet Marx) and to the READ Trust (addressed to Bertus Mathee and Debbie Botha) by JET Education Services on 12 June 2006.6 Theoretical debates are important for challenging our thinking about literacy and enabling us to conceptualise it better, but they are self-defeating if they become so polarised that we are unable to see any merit in the arguments and evidence presented by those with different views from our own.

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however, a good deal of consensus has been built about what is entailed in learning to read in a language with an alphabetic writing system (e.g. isiZulu, isiXhosa, English). There are two things which young learners need in order to gain a foothold on the first rung of the literacy ladder: firstly, phonemic awareness (the ability to notice individual sounds in spoken words) and secondly, alphabetic knowledge (recognition of the letters of the alphabet and how they relate to the sounds of the language). Phonemic awareness and alphabetic knowledge are the two best predictors of the progress a child will make in the early years of learning to read. In order to become proficient readers, learners need to develop automatic and rapid letter and word recognition and comprehension and fluency in reading. (See e.g. Adams 1990; Harrison 1996; Snow et al 1998; Stanovich 1986, 1993, 1994).

The researchers referred to above draw largely on psychology as their theoretical base. Researchers with a more social orientation argue that this is a decontextualised, skills-based view of literacy (e.g. Street 1997). From their perspective, literacy takes its meaning from the social context in which it occurs; it is a social practice and must be understood as such (see e.g. Heath 1983).

I would argue that in relation to young children learning to read in Grade 1, literacy is a skill, which involves brain-processing capacities, and is learned through practice. It is also a social practice, which is acquired through apprenticeship to those who engage in the practice. In the case of young school children, the home, community and classroom are all potential sites from which literacy takes meaning and in which apprenticeship can occur. Skills such as phonemic awareness can be acquired implicitly in the home and community through listening to stories, singing and playing language games; in these contexts value will be attached to the activity which will give it meaning and integrate it into the child’s life. Phonemic awareness can also be learned explicitly in the classroom as the teacher draws learners’ attention to the systematic features of language. The challenge for the teacher is to link this to the experiences the child brings to the classroom.

3.2.1 Phonemic/phonological7 awareness

In order to read in a language such as isiXhosa or English, children need to be able to isolate the different sounds or phonemes in words and distinguish them from each other (e.g. distinguish between the initial sounds in ‘cat’, ‘sat’, ‘mat’ in English or ‘wam’, ‘sam’, ‘yam’ in isiXhosa). Many English speaking children acquire this ability by, for example, having stories read to them (Adams 1990), reciting nursery rhymes (Bryant et al 1989; Goswami & Bryant 1990) and playing games such as ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with …’ Very little, if any, research has been done into the language play and experience of isiXhosa or isiZulu speaking children and how this affects the development of phonological/phonemic awareness. Furthermore, most research into the development of initial literacy has been carried out in relation to English; English and African languages have a different phonology, morphology and syntax. The notion of a ‘word’ is different in African languages from that in English. There is an urgent need to carry out research that could inform the teaching of phonics in the indigenous languages of South Africa.8

7 These terms are sometimes used interchangeably (see e.g. Adams 1990; Stanovich 1986); some writers see phonological awareness as a slightly broader concept of which phonemic awareness is a significant part.8 This needs to be collaborative research between departments of African languages, psychology and education in South African universities.

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In research that has been carried out elsewhere, a causal relationship has been established between phonemic/phonological awareness and learning to read (Stanovich 1986)9. Children who have a well-developed phonological awareness when they enter Grade 1, will learn to read more quickly; and explicit teaching of phonemic/phonological awareness will assist all children in learning to read. A number of studies suggest that teaching phonological awareness is especially helpful for those children who come from homes where there is little exposure to print and reading (Adams 1990). Research also suggests that phonemic/phonological awareness developed in learners’ home language can be transferred to their additional languages (August et al 2005; Wade-Wolley 2005).

However, phonemic/phonological awareness also develops over time, and as children learn their alphabet and begin to read, their phonemic/phonological awareness develops and improves. Stanovich (1986) describes this phenomenon as a ‘reciprocal relationship’. Phonemic/phonological awareness is both a cause and an effect of learning to read. Thus children gain from both explicit teaching of phonemic/ phonological awareness, and from the experience of reading and writing, which deepens their understanding of the sound system. This suggests that literacy programmes need to provide opportunities for learners to practice reading and writing and to develop phonological awareness.

3.2.2 The role of phonics

In order to learn to read, learners must grasp that “print maps speech” (Stanovich 2004). Phonics is an explicit method of teaching children that there is a systematic relationship between sounds and letters, and that spellings represent phonemes. An important part of learning to read is the ability to work out and recognize previously unrecognized words. Decoding of this kind is not, as some people suggest, meaningless – if children already have the word in their spoken vocabulary, it will be meaningful (Stanovich 1986). Adams (1990) suggests that the most important benefits of phonics instruction are related to fluent reading; in her view, the ability to recognize letters, spelling patterns and whole words effortlessly and automatically is the key to fluent reading (see also Stanovich 1986).

Research suggests that systematic phonics instruction in the beginning phase of reading is most effective (Armbruster et al 2003). However, it is important to keep in mind that there is a reciprocal relationship between reading and writing; as children actively try to write and spell words, this will enhance their knowledge of phonics. Systematic phonics instruction therefore needs to be integrated into a broader literacy programme that gives learners a rich experience of reading and writing.

3.2.3 Developing fluency

Fluent readers recognise words (and the letters they are made up of) automatically, freeing up the processing capacity of the brain to focus on comprehension. Reading speed is important in comprehension and fluency, because if a reader does not recognise words quickly enough meaning will be lost. Automaticity in reading develops gradually with a lot of practice over time and is related to vocabulary knowledge, the amount of accessible text a learner is exposed to, and motivation to read. According to Stanovich (1986; 1993) there is reciprocal causation between these different factors in reading success, which results in good readers getting

9 Stanovich (1993) claims that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of the ease of early reading acquisition.

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better and better, and poor readers falling further and further behind. Thus the gap between good and poor readers gets wider and wider as time goes by. This is what Stanovich (1986) calls the ‘Matthew principle’:

The Matthew principle

Extract from Stanovich (1993: 281) referring to an earlier paper (1986) in which he introduced the notion of the ‘Matthew principle’:

Children who begin school with little phonological awareness have trouble acquiring alphabetic coding skill and thus have difficulty recognizing words. Reading for meaning is greatly hindered when children are having too much trouble with word recognition. When word recognition processes demand too much cognitive capacity, fewer cognitive resources are left to allocate to higher level processes of text integration and comprehension. Trying to read without the cognitive resources to allocate to understanding the meaning of text is not a rewarding experience. Such unrewarding early reading experiences lead to less involvement in reading-related activities. Lack of exposure and practice on the part of the less-skilled reader further delays the development of automaticity and speed at the word recognition level. Thus, reading for meaning is hindered, unrewarding reading experiences multiply, practice is avoided or merely tolerated without real cognitive involvement, and the negative spiral of cumulative disadvantage continues. Troublesome emotional side effects begin to be associated with school experiences, and these become a further hindrance to school achievement.

Conversely, children who quickly develop efficient decoding processes find reading enjoyable because they can concentrate on the meaning of the text. They read more in school and, of equal importance, reading becomes a self-chosen activity for them. The additional exposure and practice that they get further develops their reading abilities. I speculated that reading develops syntactic knowledge, facilitates vocabulary growth, and broadens the general knowledge base. This facilitates the reading of more difficult and interesting texts. Thus, the increased reading experiences of these children have important positive feedback effects that are denied the slowly progressing reader.

What this points to is the need to diagnose as early as possible when a child is struggling to relate sounds to letters and words, and to give him or her individual support (Clay 1979, 1993). It also highlights the need to develop children’s fluency, which can be done as early as Grade 1. For example, the teacher can provide a model of fluent reading when involved in shared reading of a ‘big book.’ Young learners themselves need many opportunities to read (both aloud and silently) texts at an appropriate level, that is a level at which they experience a high degree of success. Opportunities to read the same text a number of times, including situations in which learners get guidance and feedback from the teacher, are likely to improve their word recognition, speed, accuracy and fluency. It is also helpful to build up learners’ recognition of ‘sight words’ that occur repeatedly in texts (e.g. ‘were’, ‘was’ in English and ‘atsho’, ‘watsho’ in isiXhosa).

3.2.4 The level of difficulty of texts

Children will only develop fluency and enter the cycle of positive reinforcement which Stanovich describes above, if they are provided with interesting texts at an appropriate level of difficulty. For independent reading, texts should be relatively easy; it has been suggested that no more than 1 in 20 words should be difficult for the reader (Armbruster et al 2003). Instructional texts, which will be mediated by the teacher can be more challenging; it has been suggested that no more than

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approximately 1 in 10 words should be difficult (Armbruster et al 2003). Texts with more than 1 in 10 difficult words create frustration for the reader.

Clearly in a class of 35 or more children, there will be children at different reading levels. Reading programmes therefore need to have graded reading material so that children can work at an appropriately challenging level, and move from level to level.

3.2.5 Developing vocabulary

As we have just seen, the amount of difficult vocabulary in a text provides a rough guide as to the difficulty of the text. Vocabulary therefore plays an important role in reading. When young children are learning to read, it is helpful if the words they are trying to make sense of in print are already part of their oral vocabulary. The larger a child’s vocabulary, therefore, the better they are likely to be able to read. Cunningham and Stanovich (2003: 34) claim that, ‘After decoding skills, a child’s vocabulary is one of the most important factors in fluent and easy reading.’ Obviously, it is helpful if reading programmes are structured in such a way that vocabulary is progressively built up, and teachers use strategies to develop the vocabulary necessary to read specific texts.

Once children have learnt how to read, their vocabulary improves as a result of reading. According to Cunningham and Stanovich (2003), the difference between children with extensive vocabularies and those with limited vocabularies is the amount of print they have been exposed to. Again, we see the Matthew principle in operation: the more children read, the wider their vocabularies become and the better they read. They are in what Cunningham and Stanovich (2003: 34) describe as a ‘positive feedback loop, a reciprocal effect in which reading increases their ability to read.’ This emphasizes the importance of giving children adequate exposure to print in Grade 1; without this, they will fall behind as readers and find it difficult to catch up.

In the early stages of learning to read, learners need texts which are accessible but sufficiently challenging to develop their vocabulary. They need multiple exposures to new vocabulary to support recognition. They benefit from a combination of explicit teaching of vocabulary in context and the acquisition of vocabulary through exposure.

3.2.6 Developing reading comprehension

If children can read accurately and fluently, they will be able to construct meaning of two kinds: firstly, literal meaning and secondly, a more reflective, purposeful understanding of text. In order to construct a literal understanding of text, readers need relevant background knowledge and vocabulary; understanding of sentence structure; and reading strategies such as predicting, clarifying what they have read, and using questions to guide their understanding. To develop a more reflective, purposeful, understanding of text, readers need to personally respond to texts in terms of their own experiences, beliefs and so on; and they need to be able to discriminate between the purposes and audiences for different kinds of texts (e.g. stories, poems, non-fiction).

In the early stages of reading, learners need texts with simple sentence structure on familiar topics where their background knowledge will support the decoding of print. However, as learners become more proficient in reading, texts need to extend their background knowledge and command of sentence structure. Learners need

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exposure to different kinds of texts (fiction, non-fiction, poems) and different kinds of visual material.

Comprehension can be developed by explicit teaching, for example, modeling comprehension strategies in shared reading with ‘big books’, activating background knowledge, showing how to monitor comprehension, asking questions, encouraging learners to retell stories, and so on.

3.2.7 The social dimensions of literacy – literacy as a social practice

Thus far I have been talking about learners as individuals, but we know that certain groups of children learn to read more easily than others. Children who grow up in homes where there are plenty of books and whose parents read to them have an advantage. It is not simply a question of resources; it is the meaning attached to the resources and the ways in which they are used. In some homes, parents share a similar view of literacy to that in the school; they model literacy practices (their children see them reading and writing in their daily lives e.g. a mother writing a report on her laptop; father using a recipe to cook a meal); when they read to their children, they ‘talk like teachers’. Children brought up in such environments find it relatively easy to see themselves as readers and writers. Quite early on they may pretend to read and write, for example, write a scribble that is their name. This is referred to as ‘emergent literacy’ – children’s early attempts to take on the identity of reader/writer, to invest in literacy and use it in purposeful ways.

The challenge for the teacher is to connect with the literacy practices of children who do not come from privileged backgrounds and to build on these. The teacher also needs to create a rich literacy environment in the classroom for these children, to model literacy practices and to foster their emergent literacies. This is difficult in South Africa where many teachers have not had these experiences themselves. However, if reading programmes treat reading and writing simply as a set of skills and do not attend to their social dimensions, literacy will not take hold for either the children or the teacher. They will not invest their own meaning in literacy and it will be difficult to sustain motivation. It is important to give teachers and learners a sense of ‘agency’, a belief that they can use literacy to make a difference in their lives (Janks 2003, Prinsloo & Stein 2004). It needs to become an organic part of their lives inside and outside the classroom.

3.2.8 Visual literacy

With the invention of film, television and computers, texts have become increasingly visual. For example, nowadays newspapers, magazines and books contain far more photographs, pictures, diagrams, graphs and so on than in the past. The design and layout of texts has also become more sophisticated. It is important therefore that visual literacy is included as a component of literacy (see e.g. Bamford 2003; Kress 1997, 2000).

3.2.9 Representation and text

Children see themselves and their lives represented in texts (both in the print and the visual material). Texts create identities (or subjectivities), for example, what it means to be an isiXhosa speaker, what it means to be a South African child, what it means

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to be a girl or a boy, what it means to be a reader and a writer, and so on. They also create ‘futures’ for children: what is possible and not possible for them. Research has shown that in the past, syllabuses and examinations created negative subjectivities for black South African children (Prinsloo 2002). It is important to keep the question of representation in mind when creating and evaluating reading programmes.

3.2.10 Motivation

Motivation is a critical factor in learning to read. For motivation to be generated and sustained learners need access to interesting and attractive reading material at an appropriate level of difficulty; they need to experience success in reading; and they need feedback and encouragement. They also need to see themselves as readers and writers, to invest in literacy, to have their reading and writing acknowledged and praised, to have opportunities to read and write purposefully and to see it making a difference in their lives.

3.3 What constitutes adequate reading instruction in Grade 1?

Having discussed how young children learn to read, it is now possible to say something about what constitutes adequate reading instruction in Grade 1.

In the Executive Summary of their report on ‘Preventing reading difficulties in young children’, Snow et al (1998) give a concise account of adequate reading instruction:

Adequate initial reading instruction requires that children:

Use reading to obtain meaning from print, Have frequent and intensive opportunities to read, Are exposed to frequent, regular spelling-sound relationships, Learn about the nature of the alphabetic writing system, and Understand the structure of spoken words.

Adequate progress in learning to read English (or any alphabetic language) beyond the initial level depends on:

Having a working understanding of how sounds are represented alphabetically, Sufficient practice in reading to achieve fluency with different kinds of texts, Sufficient background knowledge and vocabulary to render written texts meaningful

and interesting, Control over procedures for monitoring comprehension and repairing

misunderstandings, and Continued interest to read for a variety of purposes.

To this, we must add the social dimensions of literacy: reading, writing and viewing must become an organic part of learners’ lives both inside and outside the classroom. Texts must be understood to include visual text.

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3.4 The curriculum requirements for teaching initial literacy in Grade 1 – the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for Languages

The Foundation Phase curriculum for Languages in the NCS emphasizes the importance of what learners bring to task of learning to read and write. It advocates that, ‘The classroom should be a place that celebrates, respects, and builds on what learners already know’ (Department of Education 2002a: 9). It recognizes that children ‘begin to develop written language knowledge from the moment they are exposed to reading and writing at home, in the environment around them, and during their preschool years’ (p. 10).

The NCS adopts:

… a ‘balanced approach’ to literacy development … It is balanced because it begins with children’s emergent literacy, it involves them in reading real books and writing for genuine purposes, and it gives attention to phonics. These are the things learners need to know and do in order to learn to read and write successfully. (p. 9)

The NCS elaborates on this statement, saying that the curriculum should:

Encourage and support learners to do wide reading;Give learners frequent opportunities for writing and for developing their vocabulary

and language use; andHelp learners to discover techniques and strategies that unlock the ‘code’ of the

written word, for example:- The development of various word recognition and comprehension skills

such as phonemic awareness (sensitivity to the sounds of language),- Knowledge of letter-sound correspondences (phonics), and - Knowledge of blending (the putting together of two or three letters to

make a sound) (p. 10).

The NCS also advocates a communicative approach to language teaching in which skills (listening, speaking, reading, viewing, writing) are integrated. It recommends that teaching should be text-based; reading strategies should be developed and writing should be viewed as a process (Department of Education, 2003).

3.5 Evaluation of the READ materials

3.5.1 The structure of the programme

The structure of the programme is well conceptualised:

There are 20 units each built around a ‘story book’.Units are organized into the 4 quarters of the school year – 5 ‘story books’ per

term.This organization is both effective and simple. Pacing of the curriculum has been

identified as a problem for South African teachers (Taylor and Vinjevold 1999). The idea that teachers cover 5 books per term is easy to grasp and implement.

Each unit has the same structure (i.e. sequence of lessons): listening; speaking; reading together (shared reading); working with ‘sight words’; working with phonics; writing (shared and independent writing); learner practice (group,

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guided and independent reading); consolidation (sight words and phonics). This sequence of lessons is well conceptualised in terms of what we know about the development of language and literacy. It is also relatively easy to understand, follow and use.

The consistent structure of units is a positive feature of the course. Research suggests that South African teachers experience difficulty in designing learning programmes that support the development of learning, or ‘progression’ (Taylor and Vinjevold 1999). The consistent structure of units exemplifies what is required and provides teachers with support in this regard.

Research also suggests that learners benefit from consistency in the patterning of lessons: when children become accustomed to the kinds of activities they are expected to engage in and the sequence in which they occur, less time is spent on explaining procedures and more time is spent on learning (see e.g. Wong-Fillmore 1983). Time on task has also been identified as a problem in South African classrooms (Chisholm and Hoadley 2005).

The coherent and strongly framed structure is a positive feature of the programme, supporting a systematic approach to teaching. However, READ might need to guard against the programme becoming an end in itself, with teachers going through the routines without fully understanding the principles underpinning each activity or how they fit together to create a coherent programme of learning. This is not so much a criticism of the materials as a question for how teachers are trained to use them.

3.5.2 Educational principles underpinning the programme

As we have just seen, the conceptualization of the programme is sound. However, the rationale is not well articulated in the Introduction to the Teacher’s Guide (Incwadi kaTitshala). The approach to literacy is presented as a combination of the phonics, look and say, and whole language approaches. This presents the approach as eclectic rather than having strong underlying principles. Clearly, it is not appropriate in a Teacher’s Guide to have a long theoretical explanation. However, it is important for teachers to grasp the principles which underpin the course, as it is this knowledge that should inform their judgment in the classroom. The course writers could articulate the principles for themselves and then try to reduce them to a succinct few lines. The principles also need to be part of teacher education supporting the programme.

3.5.3 Coverage of the national curriculum

The course is in tune with the spirit of the NCS as expressed in the Introduction to the Foundation Phase in the Languages curriculum document:

It adopts a balanced approach in which children have opportunities to read real books and to work with phonics.

Children are encouraged to read; they are given frequent opportunities to write and develop their vocabulary and language use.

They ‘discover techniques and strategies that unlock the “code” of the written word

An integrated approach is used for the development of language skills (listening, speaking, reading, viewing, writing).

Something that needs to be borne in mind by people funding and implementing Izinga Eliphezulu is that no reading programme on its own can provide learners with

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access to a sufficient range of texts for them to be said to read widely, as required by the curriculum. As we have seen, the amount of text which learners are exposed to is a critical factor in vocabulary development and learning to read fluently, and according to Cunningham and Stanovich (2003: 34), it has ‘profound cognitive consequences’. Ideally, learners should have also access to a classroom library such as those provided by READ and/or a school or public library.

Coverage of the curriculum is very good:

The NCS curriculum document for isiXhosa (Department of Education 2002b) contains a few mistakes and is difficult for teachers to follow in places. There are also omissions, for example, in Grade 1 there are no recommendations as to what should be covered in phonics. The programme developers of Izinga Eliphezulu have translated the English document, adapting it for isiXhosa where necessary, and filling in the omissions (e.g. providing the content for phonics).10 This is invaluable for teachers.11

The Learning Outcomes and Assessment Standards are presented in full in the Teacher’s Guide in the form of grids, which illustrate the coverage of the curriculum over the units of the programme. This helps teachers to conceptualise the relationship between the curriculum document and what happens in the classroom. It also helps them to see how to sequence and pace the curriculum content.

The Learning Outcomes and Assessment Standards in the grids are written in both isiXhosa and English. This helps teachers to understand concepts written in isiXhosa (sometimes involving new forms of expression), which they have previously only encountered in English.

In the Teacher’s Guide, guidance is provided on how to teach each lesson. Constant links are made to the assessment standards and the page design makes this information easily identifiable and accessible.

Photocopiable assessment forms are provided for each Learning Outcome. The intention is that each child will have a set of individual forms and will be evaluated in terms of the assessment standards 4 times during the year (i.e. at the end of each term). Thus it will be possible to chart each learner’s progress against the assessment standards over the course of the year.

3.5.4 The components of the programme

The programme is made up of the following components:

120 story books : 20 different titles, 6 copies each 20 big books : 2 titles in each book, 20 stories altogether 25 learner’s workbooks : each pair of learners share a book 1 teacher’s guide 14 charts : printed back to back

The quality of the materials is excellent. They are attractive, well-designed and durable. A great deal of thought has gone into getting best value for money:

10 I am assuming that this is the case; I only have the original curriculum documents. It is possible that the Department of Education (DoE) has done further work in this regard.11 This kind of work needs to feed back into curriculum development. We should view the NCS as an ongoing project and draw on these kind of initiatives when it is next revised.

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Balance is achieved between the range of titles in the story books and the number of copies of each title available for children to read

Each big book has 2 stories printed back to back to reduce costsThe charts are printed back to back to reduce costsLearners do not write in their workbooks so they can be used repeatedly.

Learners share a workbook and write in their exercise books.

3.5.5 The story books (‘little books’)

The quality of these books is excellent:

They are well designed. The full colour illustrations are of high quality and vary from book to book (e.g. photographs, page from photograph album, realistic drawings by different artists, humorous drawings by different artists, speech bubbles, traditional children’s story book drawings). The good design and variety of artwork is important in developing children’s visual literacy and their understanding of design. As learners move up the school, design will become increasingly important in the curriculum.

The quality of the paper is good and the books are durable.The books are an appropriate size for young children. The size of the print and

the font used is also appropriate.The books are carefully graded and gradually increase in level of difficulty. They

are clearly numbered from least to most difficult. It is very important that young readers are given reading material at the right level.12

Particularly in the earlier books, vocabulary and sentence patterns are repeated to support children’s first attempts at reading.13 This is important in the early stages of reading.14

Throughout the readers vocabulary and structures are recycled, often in playful ways, which again supports reading.

Vocabulary and sentence structure are familiar to learners, which ensures that decoding is meaningful. In some instances, isiXhosa speaking informants told me that some words (e.g. ‘umalumekazi’) might not be known or used by learners living in urban areas. It is important that these learners deepen their knowledge of vocabulary.

The illustrations support understanding of the text. The quality of the illustrations is likely to stimulate discussion in which vocabulary can be generated.

The illustrations carry important messages: they construct positive identities for children; children are seen as actively engaged in literacy practices (painting the national flag, reading, writing, making a banner for Youth Day) and other activities (planting seeds, making clay animals, herding cattle, playing football; helping granny to cook); children are represented in positive relationships with family, friends and community; positive interracial relationships between children are represented; boys are seen playing football but also cooking and pounding mealies. There are a number of photos/pictures that illustrate environmental literacy (tee-shirts with slogans; name tags on school uniforms; children painting on newspapers; name labels on classroom desks; seed packets; shop signage; classroom posters) showing children that literacy is a purposeful part of life. There are also health messages (washing fruit before you eat it). Although the photographs

12 This seems to me to be an improvement over READ story books that I have seen in the past.13 In some instances, isiXhosa speaking informants claimed to me that some structures might not be those most naturally used in isiXhosa e.g. ‘Lulo lonke olu usapho lwasekhaya’ in story book 1. However, it seems to me that children’s story books always play with syntax.14 Again, I think this is an improvement of READ story books I have seen in the past.

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and pictures carry these messages, they come across as authentic – they do not appear to be forced.

The illustrations are engaging and motivating. Children will want to read the stories.

The books cover a range of topics from the everyday (My Family, Our Home, Time for School) to the imaginary (The Red Hen). Few of them are strictly speaking stories, and there is only one which is truly non-fiction (African Animals). As these are books for beginning readers, this may be appropriate at this level.

The books introduce concepts along with the topics (e.g. colours, numbers) which are important for coverage of Learning Outcome 5 – Thinking and Reasoning.

Although the books are simple, they employ a good deal of creativity. For example, in the non-fiction book, ‘African Animals’ the text is structured as ‘riddles’: learners are given clues about an animal plus a photograph of part of its body. Using this information, they guess what the animal is. They then turn over the page to find a full photograph of the animal with its name.

At the end of the book are songs and rhymes. These serve several purposes: providing opportunities for using spoken language; developing recognition of the sounds of the language (phonemic/phonological awareness); and providing further exposure to print.

There are also exercises at the end of each story, which consolidate and extend what has been learned. In the earlier books these exercises involve such things as labelling, matching, working with letters, finding differences in pictures. In later books they include simple summaries, writing sentences using a frame and completing a song.

3.5.6 The big books

The ‘stories’ in the little books are repeated in the big books; the points made above therefore apply again here. The design and artwork is even more impressive in an enlarged form.

The big books are sturdy and of a size that will enable learners to sit with the teacher and read along with him or her. The size of the print is appropriate. Printing the stories back to back is a good, cost-saving strategy.

Big books are an excellent resource for side-by-side, shared reading, in which the teacher provides a model of ‘a reader’ and apprentices children into reading. The Izinga Eliphezulu big books are written within the children’s reading level, which is entirely appropriate. However, it is important that the teacher also reads to children from storybooks that are within their listening comprehension level, but slightly beyond their reading level. The point here is that teachers should not see the big books as the only source of material for reading aloud to the children.

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3.5.7 The charts

The charts are in full colour, printed back to back as a cost-saving device:

The quality of paper is good, though they would need to be treated with care in order to last. The charts do come in a strong plastic storage pack, which would keep them flat.

There is an alphabet chart; as we have seen, knowing the alphabet is a very important element of learning to read. Appropriate words have been chosen to illustrate the letters with clear pictures (e.g. m – umama; o – isongololo; x – ixoxo).

There is a phonics chart of consonant blends. Again, this is an important aspect of initial reading and appropriate words have been chosen with clear pictures.

There is a chart for colour and shape, which are important concepts to develop in Grade 1.

The remaining charts develop vocabulary that comes up frequently in the school curriculum for Grade 1 and is also used in the Izinga Eliphezulu reading materials (e.g. members of the family, parts of the body, rooms in a house, days of the week, months of the year, seasons, etc.). The charts therefore serve to consolidate core reading vocabulary. As we have seen, this is important for the development of automaticity and fluency in reading.

3.5.8 The learner’s workbook

Although this component is called a workbook, it is not intended that learners should write in it. The teacher should photocopy the pages of exercises, where possible, or two learners should share the workbook and write the answers in their exercise books.

The exercises are varied and well conceptualised. Each exercise systematically relates to a lesson so that the teacher gets to know what is expected in exercises A, B, C and D. The exercises are well scaffolded, reasonably challenging and there is good progression. There is sufficient repetition of the exercise types to ensure that learners become familiar with the procedures and time is not wasted explaining how to do the exercises. They include:

Handwriting exercises - copying letters and words Recognizing letters in words Choosing letters or blends to complete words Matching words or sentences with pictures Choosing the right word (or phrase) to complete a sentence Choosing words to label pictures Using clues to complete a sentence Writing sentences using simple frames. Drawing to illustrate the sentences. At the end of the year, writing a paragraph about themselves using a model from

one of the stories and a frame. Completing a song and a simple crossword based on pictures. Carrying out a survey and completing a chart.

There are very simple photocopiable self-assessment sheets for the learners to use. This is in tune with OBE assessment principles.

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3.5.9 The teacher’s guide

The teacher’s guide is very well designed:

It is about the right length and it looks manageable – too long and teachers would find it intimidating

The spiral binding makes it easy to open the pages and lay them out flatThe layout is excellent – it is very easy to find one’s way around the bookThe instructions for using the different components are clearTeachers are introduced to the sequence of lessons in each unitThe explanation of skills development (concepts of print, sight words, phonics) is

clear and soundThe phonics section of the skills development is geared towards an African

language. As has already been discussed above (Conceptualising reading – How do young children learn to read?), most of the research and literature available refers to English; the writers of Izinga Eliphezulu therefore deserve praise in this regard. Emphasis is placed on syllabification as an aspect of phonics, which is important in African languages. However, in the first section dealing with phonics where sounds/letters are dealt with, the writers could have described how to sound out (segment and blend) words e.g. ‘jonga – j + o + n + g + a’, or ‘j + o + n + g + a – jonga’ (e.g. by clapping the sounds). This sounding out (segmenting and blending) is said to be an important aspect of phonological awareness. It could be argued that syllabification covers the same ground – perhaps this is an aspect of isiXhosa phonics which needs further research.

The explanation of shared and independent writing is soundThe emphasis on learner practice is sound. The teacher is required to hear each

individual child read once a week, which is excellent. It is good that teachers are encouraged to add to the Izinga Eliphezulu books.

A section is included on differentiated learning, which is excellent. However, the advice given for slower learners could be expanded. I think it needs to be linked to hearing each individual child read, diagnosing the problems of struggling readers and dealing with them accordingly. Perhaps this is beyond the scope of a Teacher’s Guide and a separate booklet needs to be written to deal with this.

The section on homework is excellent. It is simple, sound and feasible. At the back of the Teacher’s Guide are photocopiable worksheets for the homework. They contain the sight words, phonics and reading to be done for homework for each unit. They are professionally laid out, which gives added value to homework as an activity.

Again, the assessment section is excellentEach unit of the programme is explained lesson by lesson. These explanations

are clear and concise. The content of the lessons will be dealt with the next section below.

Overall, the Teacher’s Guide is excellent. There are minor problems with phonics. In Learning Outcome 3 of the curriculum grid on page 22, ‘recognizing environmental print’ and ‘sight words’ are included under phonic awareness [this is a section of the curriculum which has been developed by the Izinga Eliphezulu writers]15. Strictly speaking this is not accurate. In Learning Outcome 1, there is a reference to ‘rhyming words’, which is not really appropriate in African languages16. This was

15 I am assuming this because it is different from the NCS curriculum document for isiXhosa. The version in the Izinga Eliphezulu materials is better than that in the NCS.16 Rhymes are important in English phonics but they are not a feature of isiXhosa, which has different ways of playing with words e.g. the riddles and alliteration in ‘Izilwanyana Zase-Afrika’ –

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included in the NCS, but it could be changed since other sections have been. As has already been mentioned, possibly more attention could be given to sounding out words in the phonics section, though one would need to research the value of this in isiXhosa.

READ has clearly developed considerable expertise in design phonics activities for isiXhosa. This information is much needed by teachers, teacher educators and curriculum developers. It would be valuable if READ put together a booklet for teachers along the lines of that produced by the United Kingdom Reading Association (James 1996). Teachers need more than simple guidelines; they need to understand the principles underpinning phonics teaching. Similarly, a booklet on how to assist struggling readers would be a valuable adjunct to Izinga Eliphezulu.

3.5.10 The content of units and lessons

Each unit in the Teacher’s Guide begins with a summary of what is to be learned:

Reading vocabularySight words (includes prefixes and structural words such as ‘lo’, ‘wam’, ‘sam’)Sounds/letters (phonics)Sentence patterns (used in stories and writing frames) Language structures (includes punctuation, tenses, etc.)

This shows very clearly what is covered in the course in terms of content and it is easy to track the progression of learning. It also shows the coherence of each unit and the skill with which it has been designed:

The reading vocabulary is the basis for the work with sight words, phonics, sentence patterns and language structures

The sounds/letters are used in the sight words e.g. sounds/letters: l/L, o/O, u/U; sight words: lo, ngu-, wam

The sight words are the basis for the sentence patterns (sentence frame for writing) e.g. Sight words: lo, ngu-, wam Sentence structure/frame: Lo ngu…wam.

Each unit then follows a similar pattern:

Listening: Connections are made between the topic of each unit and the children’s background knowledge. Vocabulary is developed orally using one of the charts. Real objects are sometimes brought into the classroom. Learners are taught the poem for the unit (printed in the story book). These activities prepare learners orally for ‘shared reading’ later in the lesson sequence.

Links are made to the relevant assessment standards. Resources to be used are clearly indicated.

Speaking:Learners talk about the topic using the chart as a focus. Sentence frames are sometimes introduced as scaffolding (e.g. This is a ______ and its colour is ______.) The poem is recited chorally. These activities prepare learners orally for ‘shared reading’ later in the lesson sequence.

‘qash qash’.

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Links are made to relevant assessment standards. Resources to be used are clearly indicated.

Reading together (shared reading):The teacher reads the ‘big book’ together with the learners. He/she sets the scene by using cover, title and illustrations to build background knowledge and generate vocabulary. The teacher then reads the book to/with the children, asks questions to scaffold comprehension and helps learners to notice punctuation. The questions are excellent. They help learners make sense of what they have read, relate the topic to their lives and ask for their opinions (e.g. In the story about two friends: Do you think you could be friendly with a person who is different from you?) Learners then do the exercises at the back of the book (e.g. creating an oral dialogue from pictures, doing a class survey, filling in missing letters in words – phonics).

There are some occasions when learners have opportunities to see literacy as a social practice (i.e. to see literacy functioning in the real world), for example, the national flag in unit 3, shopping lists in unit 4; a song in unit 18. It is important that teachers understand the value of this. For example, they should discuss with the learners why we write shopping lists, possibly look at some examples of real shopping lists and give learners freedom to write lists according to their own desires without worrying to much about the accuracy of their writing (emergent literacy).

Links are made to the relevant assessment standards. Resources to be used are clearly indicated.

Sight words:As we have seen, developing automatic recognition of high frequency words is important for building fluency. The programme includes a regular session on ‘sight words’. These include ‘structure’ words (e.g. wam, sam, etc; nantsi, nazi, etc.) and prefixes, which are parts of words (e.g. ngu-, ngo-, ndi-). Thus learners also start to notice how words (morphology) and sentences (syntax) are structured. This is important in isiXhosa, which is a morphologically rich language. Links are made to the relevant assessment standards.

It is perhaps worth mentioning that in the lessons, sight words are separated from phonics, whereas in the curriculum grid for LO3 (page 22 of Teacher’s Guide) they are combined.

Phonics:Initially letters are linked to sounds and identified in written words (learners must be able to hear, recognise and write each letter of the alphabet). The learners do exercises from the workbook in which they identify letters in words, fill in missing letters in words, and copy letters and words (focus on handwriting). They then move on to letter blends using the same mix of activities from the workbook. The alphabet and phonic charts are used for this lesson. These activities are well justified in terms of what we know about learning to read.

What seems to be missing from the phonics lesson is syllabification. This is covered in the ‘Consolidation’ lessons (see below); however, this may cause conceptual confusion for teachers (i.e. it may lead them to believe that syllabification is not a central part of phonics in African languages). Work on syllabification is evident in the programme (e.g. the alphabet chart works with syllables – umama, umlilo, idada) but it is a bit fragmented. I think it would help if the underlying rationale of phonics in isiXhosa was better conceptualised. Everything is there, but it needs fine-tuning.

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It may also be an idea to include some work on segmenting words into sounds/letters and blending sounds/letters into words in the phonics section. These aspects of phonics are said to be central to learning to read; however, it is important to keep in mind that the research this claim is based on has been carried out in relation to English. There is an urgent need to do research on the role of phonological awareness in learning to read in African languages. Some people argue that the importance of phonics has been over-estimated because in English there is a complex and ambiguous relationship between phonemes and graphemes (letters and letter combinations), which does not apply in all other languages.17

Writing:The text in the big book (and story books) provides the springboard for writing. Learners retell the story using the pictures to aid recall. They dictate sentences to the teacher who writes them on the board. We see here an important bridge between speaking and writing. Learners then write themselves. They do Exercise D in the Learner’s Book, which usually has several steps. First, learners are involved in a speaking or drawing activity. For example, in the unit on ‘colours’, they draw something of a certain colour. Then, they talk to a friend about their picture using the sentence frame provided. Finally, using the same sentence structure they write a sentence about their drawing. Again, we see the careful bridging between spoken and written language.

As we have seen, writing is developed alongside control of sentence structure. At the beginning of the year, learners draw a picture and write one sentence, gradually increasing to several sentences and then (with scaffolding) a paragraph at the end of the year. They are expected to use simple punctuation.

The writing activities link the topic of the unit (i.e. the topic of the story book) to the child’s life. As the year progresses, learners write (with scaffolding) texts that have real purposes in the world (e.g. shopping lists, a song). One activity requires learners to find out remedies from home (indigenous knowledge), to bring the information to class and write it in a table. Towards the end of the year, learners are given greater freedom to write sentences of their own. In Unit 12, learners are given an opportunity to tell a story of their own providing a foundation for future writing (Have you ever tripped and fallen like Vuyo? Draw a picture and tell a story to the class about what happened.).

Evaluations have shown (e.g. READ 2005) that writing is the aspect of the curriculum where learners (and teachers) perform least well. This is the area in which literacy practices need to be strengthened most.

Learner practice:Learners read the ‘little books’ (story books). They read in mixed ability groups with group leaders. While this is taking place the teacher will be listening to individual children or a small group of children reading (guided reading). Time is also set aside for independent reading. These activities are well justified in terms of what we know about learning to read. There are clear links to the assessment standards.

17 Recent research using brain imaging techniques suggests that learning to read in Italian (a language in which, like isiXhosa, there is a regular relationship between phonemes and graphemes) takes less time and is somewhat less complex than learning to read in English; as Ross (2001: 9) puts it: ‘Reading in English is clearly a more complex task and needs to involve more areas of the brain.’

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The guidance for these activities is clear, except for how the different books at different levels will be allocated to the mixed ability groups. This is problematic because it is very important that learners are reading at the right level.

Consolidation:This consolidates work with letters, sounds and blends (phonics), sight words and sentence structure. There are clear links to the assessment standards. In Unit 7, syllabification is introduced by way of a note:

NOTE: By now, learners should be practising sounding out phonically regular words. Help learners break up long words into syllables to make reading easier e.g. le-si-ko-lo, zi-ya-fa-na, i-i-je-zi, etc.

Work on syllabification continues thereafter. This could come earlier e.g. learners breaking their names up into syllables (this should be done in Grade R, though not all children have the opportunity to do Grade R). Syllabification also needs to be understood as part of phonics (it is described as such on page 10 of the Teacher’s Guide).

As the year progresses learners do more work with prefixes and pronouns, using analogies and patterns e.g. Unit 11:

Ukuthenga = uku + thengaUkubhaka = uku + bhakaUkujonga = uku + jonga, etc.

And Unit 14:

Bonke lamNonke wamSonke yam, etc.

This is important in two ways: in seeing patterns and cracking the written code in isiXhosa; in understanding the structure of isiXhosa (Learning Outcome 6).

Since much of the work in this section is new, it is not altogether clear why it is described as ‘consolidation’.

Extension work:Interesting, practical ideas are presented for extension work, which includes differentiated learning. Many of these ideas extend writing exercises in useful ways, linking writing to the real world. However, teachers may ignore this, not seeing it as central to coverage.

Homework:As we have already seen, the section on homework is excellent. It is simple, sound and feasible. At the back of the Teacher’s Guide are photocopiable worksheets for the homework. They contain the sight words, phonics and reading to be done for homework for each unit. They are professionally laid out, which gives added value to homework as an activity.

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Cross-curricular links to other learning areas:Again, interesting and practical ideas are presented, which extend reading and writing in useful ways linked to literacy practices in the real world. There are clear links to the assessment standards in other learning areas. There are also clear links to Languages Learning Outcome 5: Thinking and reasoning.

3.5.11 The language in which the materials written

The materials are all written in isiXhosa, including the Teacher’s Guide. I asked a number of BEd (Hons) students (all practising, isiXhosa speaking teachers) to help me understand some of the more difficult text intended for the teacher, for example, the letter to the teacher at the beginning of the Learner’s Book. There was sometimes disagreement about what the text meant and the students were not always familiar with the vocabulary. They said the language was ‘formal Xhosa’ and different from the isiXhosa they speak colloquially. They were not used to reading and writing in isiXhosa and said they would find it easier to read the text in English.

I also had access to the language expertise of an isiXhosa-speaking colleague whose field of research is literacy. There were some things in the story books which she felt were incorrect, for example, in ‘Iziqhamo’, she felt:

Nazi ii-orenji esintathu. Zimnandi!

should have read:

Nanga ama-orenji amathathu. Amnandi!

These observations are not an argument for writing the materials in English. It is very important that they are all written in isiXhosa. However, it should be kept in mind that the language is still in the process of standardization; people speak different dialects of isiXhosa and there are disagreements about how the language should be written. It is a chicken and egg situation: it is only when more is written in the language in a greater variety of registers that the process of developing an accepted, written standardized form can move forward.

Since this is the situation, it is important that teachers are trained to use these materials, and that they have an opportunity to work through them and make sense of them with READ trainers. This will play an important role in developing a meta-language to talk about literacy in isiXhosa. READ is clearly sensitive to the issue, for example, the Assessment Standards in the Teacher’s Guide are printed in both isiXhosa and English.

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3.6 Strengths and weaknesses of the READ materials (Izinga Eliphezulu, Ibanga 1)

3.6.1 Strengths

The materials have many strengths:

The structure of the programme is strongly framed, coherent, educationally sound and relatively easy for teachers to grasp. The structure is likely to help teachers with sequencing and pacing of the curriculum (progression).

The coherence and consistency of the internal structure of units, lessons and activities is likely to increase time on task in the classroom.

The programme is in tune with the spirit of the NCS, and coverage of learning outcomes and assessment standards is excellent. Curriculum grids and summaries at the beginning of each unit enable one to see at a glance what is covered and the sequence in which this occurs.

The way in which the READ materials developers have dealt with inconsistencies in the isiXhosa curriculum document is helpful to teachers.

The programme assists teachers in interpreting the NCS (i.e. in conceptualizing the relationship between the curriculum statement and what ought to happen in the classroom).

The quality, design and durability of the materials is excellent.

There have been wise trade-offs to make the materials more cost-effective.

The materials cover a range of topics appropriate for the Grade 1 curriculum. There is a variety of high quality artwork to develop visual literacy.

The materials are engaging and motivating. They construct positive identities for the children who will use them.

The reading materials are carefully graded and there is sufficient repetition of vocabulary and sentence structures. Vocabulary and sentence structures are within learners’ oral command of the language. This is important if they are to crack the written code. However, there is also progression – the materials gradually become more difficult, and begin to extend vocabulary and sentence structure.

Learners are exposed to a fair amount of printed material. They are regularly engaged in well-scaffolded reading and writing activities, which become progressively more challenging.

Learners are expected to do a fair amount of writing. There is explicit bridging between speech and writing. Sentence structure is developed alongside writing.

The big books provide opportunities for teachers to model literacy practices; learners can try out the role of reader side-by-side with the teacher

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There is a good balance of whole class, group and individual work. The teacher his required to hear each child read individually at least once a week.

Knowledge of the alphabet, phonics and handwriting are taught systematically. Phonics is conceptualised well in terms of the phonology and morphology of African languages.

Units of the programme are internally coherent: background knowledge, vocabulary, structures, alphabet knowledge, handwriting, reading and writing are carefully scaffolded and consolidated.

Language skills are taught in the context of texts in an integrated fashion. There are good suggestions for integration with other learning areas.

Assessment is in line with the curriculum and is conceptualised in a clear and simple way that teachers and learners are likely to understand.

Homework is dealt with effectively.

The Teacher’s Guide is well-designed; explanations are clear; and the layout makes it relatively easy to use.

As far as I am able to ascertain, the materials are written in accessible Standard isiXhosa of good quality.

3.6.2 Weaknesses

There are very few weaknesses in the materials:

The principles driving the programme could be more clearly expressed. In order for teachers to become autonomous, to make the programme their own and eventually move beyond it (i.e. extend the ideas), they need to understand the ‘why’ of the programme.

The phonics programme is very good but there are some inconsistencies in the Teacher’s Guide (e.g. syllabification is taught as part of consolidation rather than phonics; the assessment standard includes sight words as part of phonics). Again, I think teachers need insight into the rationale for phonics (the ‘why’; how it all fits together). READ has developed a good deal of expertise in this regard and could consider producing a booklet for teachers on this topic.

It is not clear to me how the distribution of the little books will be organized for ‘Learner Practice’ There are 6 copies of each book and around 40 children in a class. Presumably some groups will be working on other activities. This needs to be more clearly explained.

Although the teacher is given some guidance about how to help struggling readers, it is not adequate. It is very important that slow readers and children with reading difficulties are identified and assisted in Grade 1; otherwise, they will fall behind and never catch up. The guidance needs to link to the weekly sessions in which the teacher hears each child read. The teacher needs to know how to diagnose and deal with reading problems in these sessions. Again, this will require an understanding of some principles. A supplementary booklet would be useful here.

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Perhaps more could be made of opportunities to support emergent literacy and engage with literacy as a social practice.

There were a few instances in which the isiXhosa text sounded as if it had been translated directly from English. IsiXhosa-speaking teachers who were asked to read the materials sometimes found difficulty with vocabulary and said they were not used to reading in isiXhosa. There was sometimes disagreement amongst readers of the materials about the grammar/vocabulary used or what the text meant. This is not really a weakness in the materials, but rather reflects that isiXhosa is still in the process of standardizing its written form.

3.7 Conclusion and recommendations

The overriding impression, I get from these materials is that they result from long experience of working with Grade 1 teachers and a great deal of trial and error in materials development. They are based on sound educational and linguistic principles. They take the best from international reading programmes and adapt them wisely to local circumstances. They are exemplary in the way in which they interpret the NCS for Languages and eminently suitable for use in South African classrooms.

The following recommendations are made:

Guidance given with regard to weak and struggling readers be strengthened. The explanation of phonics in the Teacher’s Guide be fine-tuned.

An explanation of how the ‘little books’ will be distributed for ‘learner practice’ be provided.

Opportunities be sought in the materials to support emergent literacy and engage with literacy as a social practice.

There should be ongoing trialling of the materials. In these trials attention should be paid to, among other things, the language in which the materials are written. Over time it should be possible to fine-tune the isiXhosa to meet the needs of teachers and learner.

Teachers’ knowledge of the underlying principles of this very well conceptualised programme be strengthened so that they understand why they are teaching in particular ways and take ownership of the programme. At the same time, the programme should engage with the teachers’ own literacy practices.

The knowledge and expertise embedded in this programme should be shared more widely. Many teachers in Grade 1 are confused by the new curriculum and at a complete loss as to how to implement the NCS for Languages. READ should consider engaging more broadly with teacher education in South Africa by, for example, producing books or booklets that help teachers and teacher educators understand how to teach literacy.

Educational research should be carried out into young learners becoming literate in African languages, for example, the role of phonological awareness. READ should be involved in research projects of this nature.

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Overall, the course developers should be congratulated on the excellence of their work.

3.8 References

1. Adams, M.J. (1990) Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

2. Armbruster, B.B., Lehr, F. & Osborn, J. (2003). Putting reading first: The research blocks for teaching reading: Kindergarten through grade 3. 2nd edn. United States: Centre for the Improvement of Early Reading/National Institute for Literacy.

3. August, D., Calderon, M. & Snow, C. (2005). Transfer of reading skills in bilingual children. Centre for Applied Linguistics.

4. Http://www.cal.org/acqlit/subproject2/index.html downloaded 30/05/06.5. Bamford, A. (2003). The visual literacy white paper. Australia: Adobe Systems

Pty Ltd. Http://www.adobe.co.uk/education/pdf/adobe_visual_literacy_paper.pdf6. Bryant, P.E., Bradley, L., MacLean, L. & Crossland, J. (1989). Nursery rhymes,

phonological skills and reading. Journal of Child Language, 16, 407-428. 7. Chisholm, L. & Hoadley, U. (2005). The new accountability and teachers’ work in

South Africa. Paper presented at the Annual Kenton Conference, October 2005, Mpekweni, Eastern Cape.

8. Clay, M.M. (1979). The early detection of reading difficulties. London: Heinemann.

9. Clay, M.M. (1993). Reading recovery: A guidebook for teachers in training. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

10. Cunningham, A. & Stanovich, K. (2003). Reading can make you smarter! Principal, 83, 34-39.

11. Department of Education. (2002a). Revised National Curriculum Statement Grades R-9 – Languages – English – Home Language. Pretoria: Government Printer.

12. Department of Education. (2002b). Inkazelo Yekharityhulamu Yesizwe Ehlaziyiweyo Yamabanga Ukusuka ku-R ukuya Kwele-9 – Lilwimi – IsiXhosa – Ulwimi oloNgezelelweyo lokuqala. Pretoria: Government Printer.

13. Department of Education. (2003). Revised National Curriculum Statement – Grades R-9 – Teacher’s guide for the development of learning programmes – Languages. Pretoria: Government Printer.

14. Goswami, U. & Bryant, P.E. (1990). Phonological skills and learning to read. Hove, Sussex: Lawrence Earlbaum.

15. Harrison, C. (1996) The teaching of reading: What teachers need to know. Shepreth, Herts: United Kingdom Reading Association.

16. Heath, S.B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

17. James, F. (1996). Phonological awareness: Classroom strategies. Minibook Series No. 7. Shepreth, Herts: United Kingdom Reading Association.

18. Janks, H. (2003). Seeding change in South Africa: New literacies, new subjectivities, new futures. In B. Doecke, D. Homer & H. Nixon (Eds.) English teachers at work: Narratives, counter narratives and arguments (pp. 183-205). Adelaide: Australian Association of Teachers of English and Wakefield Press.

19. Kress, G. (1997). Literacy: The changing landscape of communication. In N. McClelland (Ed.), Building a literate nation: The strategic agenda for literacy over the next five years (pp 79-81). Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire: Trentham Books.

20. Kress, G. (2000). Multimodality: Challenges to thinking about language. TESOL Quarterly, 34 (2), 337-342.

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http://www.adobe.co.uk/education/pdf/adobe_visual_literacy_paper.pdf

http://www.cal.org/acqlit/subproject2/index.html

21. Prinsloo, J. (2002). Possibilities for critical literacy: An exploration of schooled literacies in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Wits University, PhD thesis.

22. Prinsloo, M. & Stein, P. (2004). What’s inside the box? Children’s early encounters with literacy in South African classrooms. Perspectives in Education, 22 (2), 67-84.

23. READ. (2005). Learning for living: Project review. Johannsburg: READ Educational Trust.

24. Snow, C.E., Burns, S.M. & Griffin, P. (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. United States: National Academy of Sciences.

25. Stanovich, K.E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21 (4), 360-407.

26. Stanovich, K.E. (1993). Romance and reality. The Reading Teacher, 47 (4), 280-291.

27. Stanovich, K.E. (1994). Stanovich’s reply. The Reading Teacher, 48 (1), 10-12.28. Street, B. (1997). The implications of the ‘New Literacy Studies’ for literacy

education. English in Education, 31 (3), 45-59.29. Taylor, N.& Vinjevold, P. (1999). Getting learning right: Report of the President’s

Education Initiative Research. Johannesburg: Joint Education Trust.30. Wade-Woolley, L. (2005). Reading development and reading difficulties in

second language learners. Http://www.cllrnet.ca/sdg/courseware/presentation/lesly_Presen.ppt

31. Wong-Fillmore, L. (1985). When does teacher talk work as input? In S.M. Gass & C.G. Madden (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition (pp. 17-50). Boston, Mass: Heinle & Heinle.

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CHAPTER FOUR:

FINDINGS FROM THE SCHOOL VISITS

Chapter Four: Findings From The School Visits

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4.1 Introduction

A sample of ten schools was visited for interviews and classroom observations. Six were READ and IEP project schools, two were only IEP schools (C1 schools) and two were schools without any IEP or READ intervention, or C2 schools.

Table 9: Schools visited for classroom observations and interviews

School Name Projects1 Emmet Mahonga JPS IEP AND READ

2 Nozipo JP IEP AND READ

3 Sozizwe JP IEP AND READ

4 Lady Frere JP IEP5 Petersdale None

6 Uitkyk JSS None

7 Vuselela Combined S IEP

8 Nonkanyiso JSS IEP AND READ

9 Mceula JSS IEP AND READ

10 Ikamva SP IEP AND READ

This section of the report18 will discuss the findings from the different instruments administered for this component of the study (see Section 2.5 for description of methodology).

4.2 Findings from the principal interview

This instrument was made up of two sections: Section A looked at the conditions conducive to work and this was done with all schools. Section B was the actual interview which was conducted with the school principals in project schools. The focus of the interview was on the project implementation, perceptions of its effectiveness in their schools and recommendations.

4.2.1 Section A: Conditions conducive to work

On arrival at the schools researchers were required to quage the conditions condusive to teaching and learning on the day of the visit. Of the ten schools visited, the six project schools were welcoming and had planned effectively for the visit. The principals had arranged for the researchers to visit the classes where the READ programmes had been introduced. In terms of control schools, one was partially prepared, one was expecting the researchers but had not made the necessary arrangements for the visit and one participated but was indifferent. The principal at one school was openly hostile and unwelcoming. Fortunately the researcher managed to persuade the principal to participate in the interview (See Graph 1).

There was a clear focus of teaching and learning at eight of the schools (of which six were project schools and two were C2 schools) where no learners or educators were out of the classrooms during lesson time and there was a definite sense of purpose and commitment to teaching (see Graph 2 and Graph 3). In one C1 school there was some sense of

18 Written by Dr Denise Barry at JET

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discipline and order but it was evident that teaching time was wasted and the school was disrupted. However, the researchers found the second C1 school in chaos where there was no semblance of discipline and order. The principal at this school was not interested in the programme. The principal did not want to be interviewed and asked that the HOD be interviewed. He maintained that they had not been informed about the visit. In his office some of the educators were watching TV and later on listened to the radio.

Graph 1: The manner in which researchers were received by schools

Graph 2: Discipline at schools

80%

10%

10%Yes. Clear focus on teachingand learning

P artial. Some order. Somesense of aimlessness andlack of direction. Some timewasted.

No. Chaotic and disorderly

Graph 3: Learner presence in classrooms

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80%

10%

Learners in classroom duringlesson time

Learners out of classroomduring lesson time

4.2.2 Section B: Interview with principals from project schools

The section will look at the responses on each of the 12 questions asked.

Q1: Has the participation of the school in the READ intervention changed how your school has operated compared to last year?

The READ intervention has been very positively received in schools. In particular, there is great appreciation for the mother tongue intervention and the extremely high quality of reading materials provided by READ. One principal added that there has been a shift from pure phonics to a more integrated reading approach where, learners can now read words and have extended their vocabulary. They love the books.

Q2: Were the objectives of the READ programme clearly explained to you?

On the whole the principals’ concurred that the objectives of the READ Programme had been clearly explained and appreciated the once a month on-site support received by READ trainers.

Q3: Have you attended any training workshop of the use of READ/ZENEX materials in 2006?

Only 2 principals attended READ training workshops and both agreed that they found them most useful and improved their understanding. One principal added that principals are not invited to the READ workshops and that she would love to attend and know more about what was going on.

Q4: How do you feel about the on-site support given to you by READ?

Six principals were satisfied with the on-site support provided by READ and observe a lot of improvement in Grade 1 learners as well as teachers although they started very late (March 06). Another stated that she welcomed the visits because “when they are monitored they are kept on their toes”.

Q5: What has your role been in implementing the READ programme in your school?

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Five principals viewed their roles positively providing support and motivation. Class visits also appear to have become a regular feature in READ schools.

Q6: What has been the response of the teachers on the use of materials in teaching literacy in 2005? Has this changed since last year?

The principals were extremely positive about the educators’ responses to the READ materials. One principal said “They love the programme and are very enthusiastic - our HOD wants to implement it across all classes. It has provided educators with a great deal of confidence.”

Q7: Do you think READ materials have improved the teaching of mathematics in your school?

All the principals are positive about cross curricular impact of reading because the materials integrate aspects of mathematics such as shapes, colours and counting. The materials also provide a good resource for mathematics and life skills.

Q8: Do you think that the use of materials has improved your learner performance and understanding of literacy? Has this changed since last year?

The CASS records indicate that the READ intervention and materials have improved learner performance in the project classes. All principals reported that the project results are better than the results in the other grades. The project has definitely improved learner performance in reading and literacy and to some extent in numeracy aswell. They seem to understand what they are reading and more importantly they want to read.

Q9: Do you think the expansion of the programme to all teachers in all grades is beneficial to the school?

Principals concur that the READ programme has had a positive impact on the teaching of reading in the project classes and maintain that it has given the educators and learners renewed confidence. The learners are coming out of the programme promise to be more competent readers. One principal said that “If teachers in other grades in the rest of the Foundation Phase are given access and support on how to use these materials, it will definitely help learners make the transition to the Intermediate Phase easier because they have the will have basics which are lacking currently.”

Q10: How do you ensure that teachers gain access to the READ materials?

All the ZENEX materials are kept in the project classes and they are shared among the grade 1 educators

Q11: What, do you think, are long-term benefits of using the programme in your school?

Some of the responses illustrate the principals’ positive responses to the programme:

“The learners will be better prepared for Grade 4.”

“The programme will also help the learners with barriers to learning as it is a more structured approach. They enjoy the pictures and the big books, this leads them to read.”

Q12: What do you think are the limitations of the programme in your school and how could it be improved?

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On the whole, most principals are very content with the project. One principal said that “Nothing specific [needs to change] – the programme is great!” However, in terms of limitations and recommendations, principals would like to see more materials in their schools and greater on-site support for the educators. Additionally, the project needs to be implemented at the start of the year and not mid year. For example, one principal notes that “If teacher training was done at the beginning of the year the learners would excel by the end of the year – we only implemented in July 2006.” Principals are in full support of the intervention and although they realise that this is a one-year project they would prefer that the project be continued into 2007. In the words of one principal: Thank you Zenex! But we don’t know what will happen next year we still need support and training.

4.3 Findings from the teacher interview (TINT 1)

Only teachers who were implementing the project in their schools were interviewed using the TINT 1 instrument. This instrument comprised of 32 questions. Again, responses on each of the questions will be looked in this section.

Q1: How many years have you been teaching?

The majority of educators interviewed had more than 15 years of teaching experience (See Graph 4 below).

Graph 4: Years of teaching experience

14%

14%

72%

6 to 10 years

11 to 15 years

More than 15 years

Q2: How many years have you been teaching literacy in this grade?

All six teachers in the READ project schools have more than five years of experience teaching literacy.

Q3: How often have you attended READ training workshops for the READ Mother Tongue Literacy programme?

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Educator attendance at the READ training workshops was the lowest in the first quarter because some of the educators maintain that they were unsure of who should attend the training. The fact that the materials were only received by the teachers who were present could have influenced the increase in attendance during the second quarter of 2006. Presentations on the different units in the programme were held in May and group reading methodologies were dealt with in the third quarter. The Eastern Cape also experienced stay away problems during the first quarter which influenced educator attendance in the first quarter.

Graph 5: Attendance in project training

17%

50%

33%

1st quarter

2nd quarter

3rd quarter

Q4: Did you find the READ training useful?

All the educators found the training useful but they would have found it more effective if it had commenced at the beginning of the year. One teacher commented that “Even from the learners view they have improved a lot in reading with understanding.”

Q5: If yes, what aspects of the workshops did you find useful?

Educators commented on the following aspects of the workshops:

“Using the Big Books and charts has made me review my teaching strategies.”

“The trainers in the work shops were well prepared and most knowledgeable about literacy. The new methodologies have equipped us to use the materials well.”

Q6: Can you think of anyway in which the training could be improved?

All the educators would like to receive more training. One teacher commented as follows:

“If there could be a workshop once a month it would be better.”

Q7: How often have you received on-site support from READ?

Educators would like more frequent on-site visits from the READ trainers. Two teachers (or 33%) reported they get support twice a month while two (or 33%) get support once a

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month. These schools are closer to the READ offices and it is easier for trainers to visit the schools which are nearer. Schools which are further from the office receive less on-site support. One teacher reported that her school gets on-site support on a week while another teacher said that she only see the READ trainer once a term.

Graph 6: On-site support from READ

17%

33%33%

17%

Once a week

Once a month

Twice a month

Once a term

Q8: Have you found the on-site support useful?

All the educators have found the visits helpful in that they receive additional support on how to use the materials effectively. In the words of one teacher:

“READ monitors progress by visiting our classrooms and asking for our lesson plans and work schedules. They also ask to see the learners’ books and give us advice on the use of consonants – teachers used t fear that learners would not understand.”

Q9: Can you think of the ways in which on-site support can be improved?

Only one suggestion was made by the educators interviewed:

“Visits could be fortnightly especially at the beginning of the year, and towards the end of the year once a quarter.”

Q10: Have you provided support to any teacher in your school on the use of the ZENEX/READ Mother Tongue Materials?

67% of the educators who have been trained by READ offer support to their colleagues on the use of the ZENEX/READ Mother Tongue Materials. More often than not, they meet with Grade 2 teachers. In one school the HOD, who is a Grade 2 teacher, is very enthusiastic with the programme and is working very closely with the Grade 1 teacher – they are sharing the READ books and teacher guide.

Graph 7: Foundation Phase peer support on READ/ZENEX materials

53

33%

67%

No

Yes

Q11: Have you received any support on the use of these materials from any other teachers in your school?

There appears to be growing collegiality and confidence among the educators taking part in the READ training. Classroom observation and collaborative planning are emerging features of the READ training that educators are adopting in the schools with 87% of the project educators receiving assistance from colleagues.

Graph 8: Peer support in project schools

17%

83%

No

Yes

Q12: If this in-school support is taking place, do you think this is useful?

The majority of educators feel positive about the in-school support.

Graph 9: Attitude towards in-school support

54

17%

83%

No

Yes

Q13: How often do you use the ZENEX/READ Mother Tongue Materials in classroom teaching?

The majority, 66% of educators use the READ/ZENEX materials in every language lesson. The cross-curricular value of the materials is also noted by an educator. One educator expressed her concern on over reliance on the materials:

“We must not become too dependent on these materials but use them to design our own support materials.”

Graph 10: Frequency of using READ/ZENEX materials

66%

17%

17% In every languagelesson

It depends on w hetherthe materials w ill assistme in teaching aspecific concept

Also use the materialsfor numeracy and lifeskills

Q14: Can you please describe how you use them?

Teachers appear to be confident using the materials with all the educators using them for the first three categories below. Independent learning opportunities for the learners are also a feature of classroom practice encouraged by the activities in the books.

Table 10: Description of how teachers use materials

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Description %

Children work in groups 100%Children work individually 100%Structured literacy and language activities 100%Allow children to undertake open-ended explorations in an unstructured format. Learners are not guided by the teacher. 83%Other 67%

Q15: How many of the following were provided to your school by READ?

According to the READ project managers, schools were supposed to have been given

120 story books (or group readers): 20 different titles, 6 copies each 20 big books: 2 titles in each book, 20 stories altogether 25 learner’s workbooks: each pair of learners share a book 1 teacher’s guide 14 charts: printed back to back

Researchers were required to ask teacher how many materials had been provided. This is summarised in table 11 below.

Table 11: Number of materials provided to schools by READ

School 1 School 2 School 3 School 4 School 5 School 6Big books 20 10 10 10 10 20

Group readers

120 20 20 120 - 6

Posters 20 20 10 7 10 20

Learners Books

25 25 25 25 25 25

Teacher Guide

1 1 1 1 1 1

It appears that all schools had the required number of teacher guides and learner workbooks. At first glance, in four schools, only half the number of big books had been provided (Schools 2, 3, 4 and 5) and in five schools insufficient numbers of group readers were provided. When asked about this, teachers assured researchers that they had received the required number of materials but they were sharing with other teachers. Researchers verified this and saw materials in other classes.

Q16. When did you get the materials?

Schools received the books from March to May 2006.

Q17: How often to you use the following in teaching of language and literacy in your classroom?

All teachers reported to use the materials everyday since receipt of the materials. According to report back, use of the materials was less frequent in the beginning but with continued on-site support and increased confidence, teachers began to use the materials much more regularly and frequently. Now, they use it everyday. Learners’ workbooks are used on average 3 times per week.

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Q18: Do you find these materials useful?

All educators are positive about the books and find the materials useful and the user friendly. According to one teacher: “I find the materials very useful. They can be used for other learning areas, they do not only focus on literacy – deal with everyday situations.”

Q19: Which materials are more problematic to use and why?

The majority of educators interviewed agreed that the materials are very user friendly. One educator pointed out that: the Big Book was difficult to handle because she did not have a stand.

Q21: How do learners respond to the materials?

Generally teachers reported that learners responded very well to the books. For example:

“Learners are interested in the books; they are able to predict what is inside the book by merely looking at the outside pictures. They have developed speaking skills and can talk about the stories.”

“They love them a lot. They like the pictures. When they see that you are going to use the Big Book they become so happy.”

Q22: Where are the materials stored?

The materials are usually stored in the classroom where learners are free to use the books in the book corner.

Q23: How is access to the materials managed among other Grade 1 teachers at your school?

In terms of access, schools have developed their own systems of accessing the materials. This is depicted graphically below.

Graph 11: Access to READ/ZENEX materials

28%

14%

29%

29%

Teachers reserve materialsusing a roster

Arrange timetableaccommodate use by all Gr1literacy teachers

Each teacher has her ow nset of materials for herclassroom

Other

Educators who do not have their own set of materials have devised different means of sharing the books with 29% providing the following information:Q24: Were you given any written materials (e.g. manuals, books worksheets, workshop handouts, super source)?

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Educators were each provided with a manual and a variety of different materials at the workshops.

Q25: How do you access this material? Where is it stored?

The teacher manual is always in my bag – I use it every time I do a lesson. The books are in the reading corner in the classroom.

Question 26: Do you find the materials useful?

From the comments below it is clear that the educators view the materials very positively.

“The manual has steps to guide one as to what to do in each LO and is linked with the NCS.”

“We wish to have more of the worksheets because we make copies.”

“They guide us how to move forward. They enable us to unpack and understand the assessment standards because these link with the curriculum.”

Q27: Are the learners allowed to use the materials? (E.g. the worksheets)

All teachers allow learners to use the materials. According to one teacher: “Yes of course, they understand the worksheets and are keen to use them.” Four teachers said that the group readers are made readily available to learners in the book corner. They can access it even outside of literacy lessons. Most teachers do not allow learners to take the books home though.

Q28: Do you think the ZENEX/READ materials have helped you to understand how to teach language and literacy better?

It is clear from the responses below that the project materials have had a positive effect on teaching language and literacy.

“I used to concentrate for a long time on single consonants, but now see that it is important to do all the consonants at a go. As a result the learners understand double consonants earlier”.

“The programme helps me in using the assessment standards and integration. I don’t get stuck and always know what to use if I want to achieve a specific outcome.”

Q29: Has your mathematics teaching improved since using these materials?

Seventy five percent (75%) of the educators agreed that the materials have cross curricular value and are linked to LOs across the Learning Areas. It has helped them to integrate lessons across the curriculum.

“Yes. In the book that deals with fruit there is counting involved which is in the mother tongue. LO4 measurement is in the book on seasons.”

“Most of the activities integrate a lot with all the learning areas such as the posters on shapes, colours etc. “

Graph 12: Improvement of mathematics teaching

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25%

75%

No

Yes

Q30: Are your learners gaining a better understanding of reading, language and literacy through the use of the materials?

All the educators stated that the programme has made a positive impact on the learners.

“This year’s learners are capable of reading any form of material. Teachers were not confident but now they know exactly what they are going to do the next day.”

“The learners are going to be competent in reading and writing. The books are not long and boring; previously they were using very long books which were hard to understand.”

Q31: Do you find that the materials are adequately integrated into the literacy curriculum?

All the educators concurred that the materials offer integrated activities and enhance cross curricular integration through literacy.

“Yes, all the activities in the materials address the assessment standards in the curriculum.”

Comments on the READ programme by the district subject advisor?

Prior to going into the schools, district officials were notified of the visit. The subject advisor of the Queenstown district joined the researchers on the school visits. Following her visits to the schools, she was asked to give a short reflective report back about the project (See Appendix XX for the letter she faxed to JET on 9 November 2006).

On the whole, she felt that the programme is useful and beneficial and is in full support of the intervention in her district. She recommended that the project be offered to all grades and to all schools in the Queenstown district. She also noted that there is a big difference between schools that are in the programme and those that are not participating. She added that the absence of resource centres in many schools denies learners access to suitable learning opportunities and by introducing this “ excellent programme” in all schools, all teachers, all schools and all learners will benefit.

Teachers in the visited schools reported similar recommendations:

“Teachers are very happy about the programme. If it can be rolled out to all other schools, they too will gain a lot.”

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“The programme should carry on to other grades because it makes broad-minded learners.”

“It deals with everyday activities. It should also expand to other schools so that there is a lot more impact on a lot more learners and teachers.”

4.4 Findings from the classroom observations

Classroom observations were conducted in the 10 sample schools: six project schools and four control schools. The purpose of the visit was to identify the areas in which READ can assist the school to improve its performance. The classroom observations included:

A lesson observation of a literacy lesson scheduled for the day; An educator interview (TINT 2), the purpose of which was to establish what the current

policy development (implementation of NCS and AS), monitoring systems and transformation of classroom practice has taken place with or without the READ intervention;

An educator document review where educators’ work schedules were reviewed to determine whether project schools had followed the READ programme schedules and all components to each unit had been taught. The researchers also checked the pacing of the work plan in accordance with the projected year plan and if there had been sufficient curriculum coverage;

A learner document review; and A reading test with 6 learners in class being observed.

The following were the findings from this component of the study.

National Curriculum StatementsThe 70% of educators who are in possession of their own copies of the National Curriculum Statements relevant to their phase are in the ZENEX-READ project schools. Educators who do not have the necessary documents are in the control and IEP project schools. One educator shares the document with a colleague.

Collaborative lesson planning and preparationSix percent (60%) of the educators plan collectively with other teachers of the same subject for the grade they teach the remaining 40% are the only Grade 1 educator in the school. All the educators maintain that their planning is coordinated by the HOD or the principals and that the teaching plans are submitted to the HOD or principal for review. Only 80% receive any form of feedback from management on their planning.

Management feedbackFeedback from management is usually in the form of documentation being stamped and signed or written comment (See Graph 13). However, the researchers observed that there is no evidence of this happening in some of the schools the schools.

Graph 13: Form of management feedback

60

50%

0%

40%

10%

Signed/stamped

Verbal comment

Written comment

No response

Twenty percent (20%) of the educators maintain that the comment from management is not helpful and does not provide any constructive advice on how to improve their documentation (see Graph 14). All the READ project schools involved in the study stated that positive guidance and feedback is received on a regular basis and that there is steady improvement in their planning. The READ monitoring forms are used and the educators are expected to complete units every three to four weeks (see READ’s October 2006 monitoring report). This pacing has improved planning and curriculum coverage. Nevertheless it is likely that all teachers who were observed in all 10 schools will not have completed the curriculum by the end of the year.

Graph 14: Management feedback

10%

10%

40%

40%

Unhelpful

Neither helpful orunhelpful

Helpful

Very helpful - providesguidance

Since the READ intervention there is a greater acceptance of classroom observation by management and peers. Educators welcome the READ trainers and appreciate the critique on both classroom management and implementation of the literacy methodologies. Educators can now converse comfortable using new literacy terminology to describe what they are teaching in alignment with the RNCS and Assessment Standards (AS). There is an awareness of integrating the different Assessment Standards into the lessons and this is evident in the lesson planning.

Although the educators are more at ease with the principles of OBE they still require guidance on the effective implementation of the CASS model. Nevertheless, learner portfolios have been implemented recording assessment. This was demonstrated by one schools where according to the researcher there is “Evidence of records but no details of

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assessment i.e. different types of assessment are not demonstrated and there is no understanding of CASS.”

Homework still has to be implemented on a regular basis in most schools. In the Foundation Phase, learners should receive reading homework from Monday to Thursday to ensure that they practice what has been taught in the classroom. Homework also has to be monitored and systems of communication established between home and school to ensure that learners have done their reading. In project schools the homework sheets are photocopied by teachers and given to learners to take home. All project schools visited showed evidence of having completed these homework sheets. Less evidence of completed homework was shown by control schools.

Reading materialsEducators are delighted with the ZENEX-READ materials and the readers are available to learners in the classroom. Most educators in the project schools have set up a reading corner with the materials and the learners are comfortable using the materials. Because of the limited number of books educators’ are reluctant to allow learners to take the books home. The worksheets are also duplicated so that the original workbooks are retained.

The Eastern Cape Department of Education praised the READ-ZENEX programme and the quality of the materials expressing a desire for these materials to be available to all Eastern Cape schools. (See attached report)

Non- project schools have a dire shortage of reading materials.

Material development Educators still rely too heavily on materials supplied by donors. Educators need to develop the initiative and innovation to create their own resources using newspapers and magazines. The ZENEX-READ posters are well utilised in all project schools but should serve as a model for educators to emulate. Schools have created print rich environments for the learners.

Graph 15: Educator materials development

30%

20%10%

40% Never

About once a termAbout once a month

Once a week or more

Teacher Year PlansEducator preparation requires attention. Fifty percent (50%) of educators have simple lists of general topics that provide no structure to the annual teaching programme or pace setters to ensure adequate curriculum coverage.

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50%

10%

10%

30%

Low . No dates, simply listsgeneral topics or onlyindicates SO or AC

Medium. Dates and topicsindicated. Some indication ofcontent area to be covered

High. Dates of lessons andtopics. Detail on topicsprovided (i.e., topics brokendow n into lesson units).Assessment points indicated.

Assessment not possible -documents not available.

Graph 16: Level of detail in year plans

Only two project schools were working in accordance with the year plan.

The only project school that had management monitoring systems in place is Ikamva SP where there is written evidence of management feedback and guidance. Vuselela Combined S (C1 school) and Uitkyk JSS (C2 school) also has operational management systems. These year plans also indicate when and how assessment will take place.

Teacher’s Assessment RecordsAlthough 9 of the 10 educators maintain that they have implemented CASS the evidence indicates that this concept of assessment is not widely understood and educators need assistance. In eight of the ten schools educators could present their records of assessment tasks completed for the year. Four Zenex project schools kept learner profiles showing a continuous record of information about the learner’s progress. Only one school has introduced self assessment and peer assessment in Grade 1.

Table 12: Total number of assessment tasks recorded

Language Assessment

Schools

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Class tests 5 0 10 0 0 11 16 19

14 12

Examinations 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 4 3 6Projects 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 5 15 3Reading 0 0 2 0 0 CASS CASS 7 CASS 10Oral 0 0 2Written exercises 0 0 35 21 40

Other (specify): 0 0 Spelling only

Art Creative writing

Learner book reviewEducators have found the two week cycle for each topic helpful because it sets the pace for the completion of the work. There is a marked increase in writing activities with the implementation of the project. Learners are also encouraged to illustrate the story and provide creative interpretations of the characters.

Table 12 shows the number of topics covered in the learner workbooks.

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Table 13: Topics that are covered in the learner books

Zenex project schools1 2 3 8 9 10

Number of exercises completed

21 13 45 - - -

Read units completed 12 7 12 6 13 10

Learner Reading Performance Six Grade 1 learners were asked to read in each class. The researcher assessed the performance of each learner against the Reading Learning Outcome (LO3) which seeks to establish whether the learner is able to read and view information and enjoyment, and respond critically to the aesthetic, cultural and emotional values in texts. The assessment standards are provided in the graphs below. (See Appendix for specifications of the test). The following analysis of learners’ reading ability across the sample schools is presented below.

Table 14: Assessment standards for LO3 (a)

3.1 The learner uses visual cues to make meaning:

3.1.1 predicts from the cover of a book what the story is about;3.1.2 uses illustrations to interpret the meaning of stories, and tells a story;3.1.3 interprets information including simple tables and graphical images found in print, media and advertising such as calendars and rosters, HIV/Aids posters.

All ZENEX-READ project schools outperformed the IEP C1 schools and one C2 school outperformed one project school (Emmet Mahonga JPS) where none of the learners was able to interpret information of a simple nature. This indicates that although the learners may have mastered the necessary decoding skills they do not have elementary comprehension skills. These assessment standards are incorporated into the Big Book methodology and the learners are encouraged to focus on the illustrations and provide an interpretation of the story.

The learners from Lady Frere, Uitkyk and Vuselela Combined were unable to perform any of the tasks successfully. It is clear that the Big Book methodology is not incorporated into the reading programme in these schools.

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Graph 17: Schools using visual cues to make meaning on LO3 AS

USING VISUAL CLUES TO MAKE MEANING

01234567

AS 3.1.1AS 3.1.2

AS 3.1.3

Table 15: Assessment standards for LO3 (b)

3.2 The learner is able to role-play reading:

3.2.1 holds the book the right way up;3.2.2 turns pages appropriately;3.2.3 looks at words and pictures;3.2.4 uses pictures to construct ideas.

All of the learners in eight project schools could perform the tasks successfully. The READ programme includes a shared reading component using Big Books which enables the teacher to be “the reading role-model”.

Learners from Lady Frere and Petersdale control schools found it difficult to decipher picture and were unable to use the pictures to construct ideas. Exposing learners to a print rich environment with a wide variety of reading resources was not evident in these control schools.

According to the researcher who visited Vuselela Combined, there were only 3 books at this control school. “These books limit learners a lot because they do not know capital letters or full stops.”

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Graph 18: Schools using role-plays for reading

ROLE-PLAYS READING

01234567

AS 3.2.1

AS 3.2.2AS 3.2.3AS 3.2.4

Table 16: Assessment standards for LO3 (c)

3.3 The learner makes meaning of written text:

3.3.1 Reads a story with the teacher and discusses the main idea;3.3.2 Reads a story with the teacher and identifies the details (main characters, setting, sequence of events);3.3.3 Reads a story with the teacher and says whether the story was liked and why

All ZENEX-READ project schools outperformed the IEP C1 school and one C2 school outperformed Emmet Mahonga JPS where none of the learners was willing to say if they enjoyed the story. Only two learners out of the six were able to discuss main idea and identify the main characters and place the events in the correct sequence. This suggests that learners in the control and IEP school do not engage with discussion on the stories they read with the educator and that shared reading is not incorporated into the lessons.

Shared reading methodology using the Big Books is a central component of the reading process advocated in the READ programme. The educators have been trained to read to the learners and help them to focus on the different elements in the story (characters, setting, sequence of events) and discuss them in a group setting. Learners are taught to engage with the text and this scaffolding enables learners to enhance their confidence as readers. Shared reading and exposure to the rich array of reading materials provided by the READ-ZENEX project enables learners to develop their schema, building new background knowledge and enriching life experience through the characters in the stories. Shared reading takes the learners beyond encoding and decoding skills to deeper comprehension and interpretation of text. The learners from 3 control schools, namely Lady Frere, Uitkyk and Vuselela Combined, do not have elementary comprehension skills or confidence to perform any of the tasks successfully.

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Graph 19: Schools where meaning of written text is made

MAKES MEANING OF WRITTEN TEXT

01234567

AS 3.3.1

AS 3.3.2

AS 3.3.3

Researcher comments Emmet Mahonga (Project school):

Learner 1: Book given to learner upside down. She was able put it in the correct order. She used her fingers whilst reading. She read with comprehension, pausing at commas, lifting her voice at the beginning of the sentence.Learner 2: Her reading was good. She was able to summarise the contents of the story.

Sozizwe JP (Project school):

Most learners are able to read.

Petersdale (C2 school): Overall, learners are struggling to read. Even the one that is making an attempt is not good enough. Learner 2: Confident when reading but not reading text. Learner 4: knows story by heart but is not pointing to the right word when reading. Learner 5: Cannot read at all. Learner 6: knows story by heart. If given a sentence randomly can’t read it.

Table 17: Assessment standards for LO3 (d)

3.4 The learner recognises letters and words and makes meaning of written text:

3.4.1 Reads simple written materials (labels, stories) for different purposes;3.4.2 Reads own writing and the writing of classmates;3.4.3 Uses phonic and word recognition skills to decode new or unfamiliar words in context (e.g. visual cues like shapes of words like hat and mat)

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All ZENEX-READ project schools outperformed the IEP C1 schools and one C2 school outperformed Emmet Mahonga JPS where learners require additional support and individual practice to consolidate word recognition skills and phonics.

The learners from Lady Frere, Uitkyk and Vuselela Combined control schools do not have elementary phonics and word recognition skills or confidence to perform any of the tasks successfully.

Graph 20: Schools where letters and words are recognised and meaning of written text is made

RECOGNISES LETTERS AND WORDS AND MAKES MEANING OF THE WRITTEN TEXT

01234567

AS 3.4.1

AS 3.4.2

AS 3.4.3

The researcher who visited Nozipho Junior Primary reported that “some learners look at the picture but cannot read captions according to what is written.”

Table 18: Assessment standards for LO3 (e)

3.5 The learner develops phonic awareness

3.5.1 recognizes and names letters of the alphabet;3.5.2 understands the difference between letter names and letter sounds; 3.5.3 understands the letter-sound relationships of most single consonants and short forms of vowels in;3.5.4 segments simple words with single consonants and short vowels (CVC pattern) into onset (the first sound) and rime (the last part of the syllable; 3.5.5 groups common words into word families; *3.5.6 recognizes the silent e in common words such as cake;3.5.7 recognizes two letter blends at the beginning of words; 3.5.8 recognizes two letter blends at the beginning of words; 3.5.9 recognizes some high frequency words including own name and print in the environment

* No equivalent in IsiXhosa

The ZENEX-READ project schools appear to have consolidated basic phonics awareness in the mother tongue. In lessons observed educators appeared to be confident integrating

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the phonics into the Big Book shared reading. Learners repeat the sounds and educators reinforce this with individual reading. This was not done in control schools.

Graph 21: Schools where letters develop phonic awareness

DEVELOPS PHONIC AWARENESS

01234567

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AS 3.5.6

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AS 3.5.9

Table 19: Assessment standards for LO3 (f)

3.6 The learner reads for enjoyment

3.6.1 reads picture books with simple captions;

Graph 22: Schools where letters read for information and enjoyment

READS FOR INFORMATION AND ENJOYMENT

01234567

AS 3.6.1

Three of the six READ-ZENEX schools are performing well with all learners tested capable of performing the required tasks.

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Concluding remarks from researchers:Zenex is a good project because the books accommodate all the learning outcomes i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing. It also promotes learners’ interest in reading and writing, It changes learners’ attitude to absenteeism. They come to school all the time even when the weather is cold or raining.

The project has done wonders for the learners. They are very good in reading and in writing. The educator is confident and knows what she is doing. She only complained about the training (they are very scarce). All the information she has received was from READ.

The Zenex books are good and help the learners to think broadly.

The project is very helpful. Learners are responding very positively. They are eager to learn. The learners are very enthusiastic about the materials.

If the training can take place before the school closes this can help educators to prepare for next year. They enjoy using the books as they see a difference in the learners. The learners can write and are able to differentiate between letters.

This is a good project because learners will proceed to another grade with more information on literacy.

The colourful ‘real’ books seem to have captured the learners’ imagination and caused teachers to use the books and programme at a better pace and in a more ‘hands-on‘ way thereby increasing their confidence and ability to teach literacy.

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CHAPTER FIVE:

LEARNER PERFORMANCE

Chapter Five: Learner Performance

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5.1 Introduction

Learner testing is essential to the assessment of the health of any education system and to track change in the functionality of the system over time. In a project context, learner testing is ideally administered at three stages:

At baseline stage, diagnostic testing provides donors, Department of Education officials and implementers with information regarding the level at which learners are performing prior to project intervention, which informs the type of interventions required;

At mid-term testing stage, the same target audience is able to get information regarding the impact of the intervention and is thus able to make informed decisions aimed at improving the interventions; and

At final testing stage, learner testing may establish the summative impact of the project on learner performance, thus enabling participants to identify good practices for purposes of replication and sustainability.

The aim of the testing in this study is to provide comparative information on levels of literacy among selected Grade 1 learners in a sample of 24 project schools and eight control schools. The focus therefore is on ascertaining whether learners have the ability to read, write and respond to the kinds of linguistic tasks specified by the RNCS for the Grade 1 level.

This section of the report provides the results of the learner performance component of the study19.

5.2 Instrument

In reference to the Grade 1 test, the proposal said we would take Grade 1 items from the existing JET test and use these items to formulate the “revised Grade 1” test. However, this resulted in a test with poor reliability (as there were too few items) and validity (insufficient coverage of the Grade 1 curriculum). Emanating from this, a new test was developed in collaboration with Professor E. Pretorius who is a Head of the Linguists Department at UNISA and who has extensive experience in language and literacy at the Grade 1 level. The test is appropriately aligned to the Grade 1 NCS framework (see Appendix XX). This test was developed in English and then translated into IsiXhosa20.

The following core reading and writing competences or LOs, as required by the NCS, are assessed in the Grade 1 Literacy test:

Reading and viewing (LO3), where the learner is expected to be able to read and view for information and enjoyment, and respond critically to the aesthetic, cultural and emotional values in text;

Writing (LO4), where the learner is expected to write different kinds of factual and imaginative texts for a wide range of purposes; and

19 The following should be noted: The chosen schools are not representative of the Eastern Cape province or districts (Queenstown and Lady Frere) in which they are situated. Therefore, differences in performance of schools are not indicative of the relative performances of the province or the district as a whole, and do not necessarily imply anything about the quality of education provided in this province or districts. This is because many factors – principally the socio-economic context of the learners – influence performance.20 This was done by Selby Xhosa from Zwelinhle Translations.

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Thinking and reasoning (LO5), referring to the learner’s ability to use language to think and reason, as well as to access, process and use information for learning.

In particular, the Literacy test assesses learners’ ability to access information, infer information, use language in context, and apply information from a variety of forms such as illustrations. However, these three skills are not mutually exclusive. For example, an item that requires Reading and Viewing for comprehension, may also involve Thinking and Reasoning to generate a response, which will then require Writing in order to be communicated.

For this reason, it makes little sense to report the results of the Literacy test in terms of these overlapping categories. It was therefore decided to categorise each item according to types of skill being assessed in the different sections of the test.

The test was made up 31 items and is divided into six sections as follows:

Table 20: Literacy test section descriptions

Section DescriptionSection 1 - Assessing pre-reading skills (LO3)

- Combination of Grade R and Grade 1 work.- Learners were required to match pictures (therefore visual

discrimination and pictorial matching skills being assessed).- Total number of items: 3

Section 2 - Assessing pre-reading skills (LO3)- Grade 1 level work.- Learners were required to match letters of the alphabet

(therefore visual discrimination and letter matching skills being assessed).

- Total number of items: 5Section 3 - Assessing word recognition (LO3 and LO5)

- Grade 1 level work.- Learners were required to read a word and match it with an

associated image.- Total number of items: 3

Section 4 - Assessing word recognition.(LO3)- Grade 1 level work.- Learners were required to read a word and match it with

associated body part.- Total number of items: 10

Section 5 - Assessing higher order reasoning skills. (LO3 and LO5)- Learners were required to identify details of content using

written word and then they had to match the symbols (weather chart was the cue)

- Total number of items: 5Section 6 - Assessing higher order reasoning skills. (LO4 and LO5)

- Learners had to complete and write out sentences.- Total number of items: 5

5.3 Test administration

Tests were administered in the Language of Teaching and Learning (LOLT), which was IsiXhosa.

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The JET Grade 1 literacy test is not a speed test, but fieldworkers were instructed to allow the session to last not more than 45 minutes because of fear of learner fatigue. The test has been designed so that it should only last for 30 minutes. However, an additional 15 minutes was allowed where it was evident that most of the learners (90%) in the class had not completed the test. As it turned out, all learners in the schools managed to finish the test within 40 minutes.

A total of 695 learners wrote the test across the 32 schools.

5.4 Results of learner testing

The remainder of this report provides a discussion of the learner performance results by looking at the mean percent correct for the different sections of the test and the test overall.

5.4.1 Group comparisons

Overall, project schools performed the best in comparison to both groups of control schools (C1 and C2), attaining a mean score of 67%. C1 schools (or schools with IEP only) performed the worst, achieving a mean score of 57%. This is depicted in Table 21 and Graph 23 below.

Table 21: Overall mean percentage scores – comparison between project and control school groups

Projects Mean N Std. DeviationIEP and READ (Project) 67.1522 547 18.67719IEP only (C1) 56.9684 103 23.56901None (C2) 62.9391 45 27.48072

Graph 23: Overall mean percentage scores – comparison between project and control school groups

TotalSection 6Section 5Section 4Section 3Section 2Section 1

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In terms of the standard deviation, although the result of 18.67 is quite high, project schools had the lowest score in comparison to control schools. This is positive as it means that there is less variance in learner scores in different project schools than in control schools.

5.4.2 Section-by-section comparisons

It is important to determine what are the learners’ relative strengths and weaknesses in Literacy skills. According to Table 22 and Graph 23, Grade 1 learners in project schools are performing best on Section 1, Section 5 and Section 3. In control schools, similar trends are evident although the mean percentage scores are lower in both groups of control schools than those attained by project schools. Learners in all groups had the greatest difficulty in correctly answering items in Section 6. Again, the mean percentage score achieved by project schools in this section was higher than those of the control schools.

Table 22: Overall mean percentage scores per section – comparison between project and control school groups

Projects Statistics Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Section 4 Section 5 Section 6IEP and READ

Mean 88.6045 77.0018 82.8763 62.1572 83.2176 28.9214N 547 547 547 547 547 547Std. Deviation 22.24074 24.65450 25.30430 31.65908 26.21191 25.92125

IEP only


None


Section 1:

Section 1 required learners to match pictures. This is a pre-reading skill which is important for learners to master before they are able to begin learning to read. Questions 1 to 3, as shown below, are the items which made up this section.

The frequency table (see Table 23) shows that majority of learners in project schools and C1 schools (75%) and 69% in C2 schools were able to answer all three items in this section correctly. Only 1.5% of learners in project schools could not answer any of the items correctly, while in control schools the percentage of learners who could not correctly answer any items in this section was 10% and 13% respectively.

Table 23: Frequency of scores – Section 1

% Score Project C1 C2.00 1.5 9.7 13.333.33 6.6 3.9 4.466.67 16.6 11.7 13.3100.00 75.3 74.8 68.9

The fact that so many learners were able to achieve 100% is not unexpected because this is predominantly a Grade R level item.

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An item analysis shows that question 3 was the easiest item (i.e., most learners got this item right) in this section across project and control groups, followed closely by question 1 and then question 2. This is more clearly shown by table 24 and Graph 24 below.

Table 24: Difficulty values – Section 1 Graph 24: Difficulty values – Section 1

Item Project C1 C2Q1 89.4 80.6 82.2Q2 85.2 83.5 73.3Q3 91.2 87.4 82.2

Section 2:

Section 2 required that learners match letters. This question was assessing whether learners could recognize and match letters (as shown by Questions 4 to 8 below).

4. C d

5. b f

6. f b

7. d g

8. G c

The frequency table (see Table 25) shows that 46% of learners in project schools were able to correctly match all five items in this section. In C1 schools the number was 38% while in C2 schools, 44% of learners did the same. The number of learners who could answer none of the Section 2 items correctly was higher in control schools than in the project schools (i.e., 10% and 11% in C1 and C2 respectively versus 3% in project schools).


% score Project C1 C2.00 2.7 9.7 11.120.00 .9 1.0 4.440.00 3.7 3.9 6.760.00 40.6 44.7 26.780.00 5.5 2.9 6.7100.00 46.6 37.9 44.4

Section 2 was much more difficult for Grade 1 learners than Section 1 as evidenced by the fewer number of learners who achieved 100% and the mean percentage score of 77%, 68% and 69% respectively (see Table 22). The confusion experienced by many learners in project schools was matching the letter ‘c’ and ‘f’. This indicates that learners are not yet comfortable with these

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sounds and more emphasis should be placed on them if adequate reading in later grades is to take place. This is more clearly illustrated by the difficulty values in table 26 and Graph 25 below.


Item Project C1 C2Q4 59.4 51.5 55.6Q5 85 75.7 71.1Q6 58.3 49.5 55.6Q7 86.8 79.6 77.8Q8 95.4 87.4 86.7

Section 3:

In Section 3, learners were required to read the word in the first block and draw a line through the matching picture. This is illustrated by Questions 9 to 11 (see next page).

This is the first time learners were required to read a word and was consequently more difficult than Section 1 and 2. In project schools, 62% of learners correctly matched all three words with the relevant picture, while in both groups of control schools just over 50% of learners could not successful answer these three items. Almost a fifth of learners (18%) in C1 schools could not answer any items correctly. See Table 27.


% score Project C1 C2.00 2.6 18.4 13.333.33 8.6 6.8 4.466.67 26.5 23.3 31.1100.00 62.3 51.5 51.1

Item analyses shows that in project schools Question 10 was the most difficult and Question 11 was the easiest. In C1 schools the easiest item was Question 9 and the most difficult was Question 10. C2 schools found Question 11 the hardest and Question 9 the easiest.


Item Project C1 C2Q9 87.6 74.8 82.2Q10 72.2 62.1 71.1Q11 88.8 70.9 66.7

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Section 4:

In Section 4, learners were required to match a word to the relevant body part. There were 10 items in this section: Question 12 to Question 21.

English word IsiXhosa word12 Ear indlebe

13 Nose impumlo

14 Knee Idolo

15 Foot unyawo

16 Mouth umlomo

17 Eye imehlo

18 Hand isandla

19 Finger umnwe

20 Elbow Ingqiniba

21 Toe uzwane

The overall mean for this section was 62% for project schools, 51% for C1 schools and 66% for C2 schools (see Table 22). However, the frequency table (see Table 29) shows that a lot more learners in project schools (20.5%) could competently answer all ten items in this section than control schools (10.7% and 17.8% for C1 and C2 schools respectively).


% score Project C1 C2.00 0.0 16.5 15.610.00 11.5 3.9 2.220.00 6.9 8.7 0.030.00 7.9 5.8 2.240.00 7.3 5.8 2.250.00 6.0 12.6 6.760.00 9.0 8.7 4.470.00 5.7 4.9 11.180.00 12.1 12.6 17.890.00 13.2 9.7 20.0100.00 20.5 10.7 17.8

Section 3 was much more difficult for Grade 1 learners than Section 1 and 2 as evidenced by both the fewer number of learners who achieved 100% and the overall lower mean percentage scores.

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Item analyses shows that the first three words were found to be the easiest for Grade 1 learners in both project and control schools but more so for project schools as they achieved higher scores. Thus they easily recognise the words for “ear”, “nose” and “knee”. However, the last four words in this section (i.e., “hand”, “finger”, “elbow” and “toe”) were found to be the most difficult.

As mentioned earlier the test was developed in English and the words chosen for this section followed the basic prescribed consonant vowel consonant (CVC) pattern. According to report backs from the test administrators learners clearly struggled to answer these items. This is because the phonics in isiXhosa for these last 4 words (i.e., “isandla”, “umnwe”, “ingqiniba”, and “uzwane”) is much more evolved and is therefore more difficult. The fact that a number of learners in project schools and to some extent in control schools could successfully answer these last four items is noteworthy. It suggests that learners are beginning to break the word into its constituent sounds and phonics and are able to read the word. This is a positive finding.


Item Project C1 C2Q12 88.5 65 71.1Q13 70.7 61.2 68.9Q14 75.3 58.3 80Q15 54.5 34 57.8Q16 57 55.5 55.6Q17 61.8 55.3 73.3Q18 53.4 42.7 60Q19 59.2 52.4 71.1Q20 45.9 39.8 62.2Q21 55.2 47.6 55.6

Section 5:

In this section, learners were required to look at a weather chart provided and find the correct picture for the underlined word. Learners were then required to draw the picture in the block for each word underlined. There were 5 questions in this section (see Questions 22 to 26 below).

22. Monday is sunny.

23. Tuesday is cloudy.

24. Wednesday is rainy.

25. Thursday is cold.

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26. Friday is hot and windy.

This section was more demanding than the previous sections as learners had to read sentences, make sense of what they were reading, pick out the underlined word, and find the relevant symbol in the weather chart provided. Yet, according the mean percentage scores, learners seemed to enjoy this section and performed generally well. Relatively high means of 83%, 79% and 78% in project, C1 and C2 schools respectively were observed (see Table 22). The frequency table (see table 31) shows that almost three fifths (60%) of learners in project schools and around 57% in C1 and C2 schools, achieved 100% on this section. Very few learners could not do this section at all: about 4% in project schools, 10% in C1 schools and 11% in C2 schools.


% score Project C1 C2.00 3.7 9.7 11.120.00 2.7 1.0 4.440.00 5.3 3.9 2.260.00 10.1 13.6 6.780.00 18.6 14.6 17.8100.00 59.6 57.3 57.8

Item analyses reveal that Q22 was the easiest for learners in project schools because more learners got this item correct while Q26 was the hardest as fewer learners were able to correctly answer this item. The same was evident in C1 and C2 schools.


Item Project C1 C2Q22 94.1 87.4 88.9Q23 88.1 73.8 75.6Q24 86.3 85.4 84.4Q25 75.7 78.6 71.1Q26 71.8 68.9 68.9

Section 6:

The last section of the Grade 1 literacy test was Section 6. This section was by far the most challenging section for Grade 1 learners in both project and control schools. The low mean percentage scores of 29% in project schools, 12% in C1 schools and 20% in C2 schools are proof of this. This section required learners were given a picture of a group of children watching a storm outside the window of their classroom. Learners had to use this picture to complete the following four sentences (Question 27 to 30):

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27. What day is Today in the story?

Today is ___________________________________________________________

28. Outside there is a ____________________________________________________

29. In the classroom we ___________________________________________________

30. We all feel __________________________________________________________

The last item required learners to write their own ending to the story (See Question 31).

Write your own ending next to 31.

31. _____________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________

This item, apart from assessing LO3 and LO4 skills (reading and viewing, and writing), also assessed LO5 skills (thinking and reasoning). However, the thinking and reasoning skills required here were much more higher order than in the previous sections. It comes as no surprise therefore that learners struggled the most with this section. The frequency table (see table 33) reveals that very few learners were able to get 100% on this section. Less than 3% of learners in project schools and C1 schools and none of the learners in C2 schools could achieve this. Many learners achieved a percentage score of zero: 26% in project schools, 67% in C1 schools and 40% in C2 schools.


% score Project C1 C2.00 26.3 67.0 40.020.00 34.4 18.4 33.340.00 18.5 7.8 13.360.00 12.8 1.9 11.180.00 5.3 1.9 2.2100.00 2.7 2.9 0.0

Item analyses reveal that learners were not able to do creative writing or writing that required abstract thought. In other words most learners could not do Questions 29, 30 and 31. Despite this, project school learners performed substantially better than their control school counterparts. This suggests that the intervention is having a marked effect on learners’ ability to think abstractly and creatively. It is likely that if the schools had started with the project at the beginning of year, instead on half way through the year, the results in this section and other sections as well could be substantially higher than the control schools.


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Item Project C1 C2Q27 58.3 29.1 44.4Q28 47.2 13.6 37.8Q29 19.9 7.8 15.6Q30 13.9 6.8 2.2Q31 5.3 4.9 2.2

5.4.3 District comparisons

At a district level, Lady Frere (considered in this case as the rural district) performed better than Queenstown (considered in this case as the urban district), with means of 67% and 64% respectively. This is tabulated in Table 35 below.

Table 35: Overall mean percentage scores per district

District Projects Mean N Std. DeviationLady Frere IEP and READ 74.5968 200 14.62760

IEP only 44.8511 52 23.31646None 53.0792 22 30.90443Total 67.2239 274 21.96103

Queenstown IEP and READ 62.8614 347 19.41433IEP only 69.3232 51 16.44051None 72.3703 23 20.21140Total 64.1637 421 19.29777

When disaggregated at the project level, the mean percentage score of Lady Frere’s project schools surpassed the mean percentage scores of C1 and C2 schools (i.e., 75% versus 45% and 53% respectively). Unfortunately, the reverse pattern was noted in Queenstown, where the mean percentage score of 63% was the lowest in comparison to C1 and C2 schools (69% and 72% respectively). This is more clearly depicted in Graph 30 below.

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Graph 30: Overall mean percentage scores per district

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5.4.4 Gender comparisons

The expectation is that girls tend to perform better than boys on literacy and language. The results in Table 36 show that girls are performing slightly better than boys overall. Although this fits with the expectation, the difference of 0.8% is minimal and not statistically significant.

Table 36: Overall mean percentage scores per gender

Gender Projects Mean N Std. Deviation No data

IEP and READ 65.1183 75 16.71720IEP only 39.9044 27 28.42131Total 58.4440 102 23.18751

Girls

IEP and READ 67.6317 234 19.74742IEP only 66.2416 43 19.47414None 61.4247 24 31.68465Total 66.9382 301 20.87599

Boys

IEP and READ 67.3218 238 18.20572IEP only 58.8465 33 15.86539None 64.6697 21 22.38338Total 66.1732 292 18.42241

Graph 31: Overall mean percentage scores per gender

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5.4.5 School-by-school comparisons

The school-by-school analysis on the overall Grade 1 Literacy test score for the Grade 1 learners in project and control schools is shown in Graphs 32, 33 and 34 below21 .

Graph 32: Overall mean percentage scores per project schools

21 The tabulated performance in each of the six sections and overall score for each of the schools tested on the Grade 1 Literacy test can be found in Appendix XX.

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Graph 32 shows that five project schools achieved a mean percentage score of 80% or more. Kundulu Primary which was situated in Lady Frere achieved the highest mean percentage score of 89%. This was followed closely by Masikhule Primary, also situated in Lady Frere, with a mean score of 88.9%.

Eight schools achieved means in the 70% to 79% bracket and four schools attained scores within the 60% mark, and five within the 50% mark.

The lowest mean percentage score was achieved by Whittlesea Primary whose mean percentage score was 46% and which is located in Queenstown.

Graph 33: Overall mean percentage scores per C1 schools

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Graph 33 shows that of the four schools tested for the C1 control group, the highest score of almost 71% obtained was by Vuselela Combined which is located in Queenstown. This is followed closely by another Queenstown school, Nkululeko Primary, with a mean score of 68%.

The lowest mean percentage score were achieved by Nozuko Primary whose mean percentage score was just under 40%. This score of 39.9% was 6.24 percentage points lower than the lowest project school mean percentage score.

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Graph 34: Overall mean percentage scores per C2 schools

Uitkyk Primary SchoolSithemba Primary School

Pieter's Dale Primary School

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Projects: None

Graph 34 shows that of the four schools tested for the C2 control group, the highest score of 81% obtained was by Bolhoek which is located in Queenstown.

The lowest mean percentage score were achieved by Sithemba Primary whose mean percentage score was 39%.

It is clear from the above graphs that the highest mean percentage scores were obtained by more project schools than control schools. Similarly, the lowest mean score attained by a project schools was still higher than the lowest mean score of both the C1 and C2 group. This suggests that the READ intervention is having a positive effect on schools which have had exposure to this intervention.

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CHAPTER SIX:

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Chapter Six: Summary and Conclusions

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6.1 Introduction It is clear from the findings of this study that the mother tongue literacy project, implemented by READ and funded by the Zenex Foundation, is having a significant and beneficial impact on schools where this intervention is being implemented. In comparison to both levels of control schools, C1 (or IEP only schools) and C2 (or no intervention), the project schools have outperformed the control schools across a number of areas and one can confidently state that the project has had a positive impact on both educators and learners.

6.2 Materials

The evaluation concluded that these materials are based on sound educational and linguistic principles. They take the best from international reading programmes and adapt them wisely to local circumstances. They are exemplary in the way in which they interpret the NCS for Languages and eminently suitable for use in South African classrooms.

A few recommendations were made. These are that:

Guidance needs to be given with regard to weak and struggling readers be strengthened.

The explanation of phonics in the Teacher’s Guide needs to be fine-tuned. An explanation of how the ‘little books’ will be distributed for ‘learner practice’ needs to

be provided. Opportunities should be sought in the materials to support emergent literacy and

engage with literacy as a social practice. There should be ongoing trialling of the materials. In these trials attention should be

paid to, among other things, the language in which the materials are written. Over time it should be possible to fine-tune the isiXhosa to meet the needs of teachers and learners.

Teachers’ knowledge of the underlying principles of this very well conceptualised programme needs to be strengthened so that they understand why they are teaching in particular ways and take ownership of the programme. At the same time, the programme should engage with the teachers’ own literacy practices.

The knowledge and expertise embedded in this programme should be shared more widely. Many teachers in Grade 1 are confused by the new curriculum and at a complete loss as to how to implement the NCS for Languages. READ should consider engaging more broadly with teacher education in South Africa by, for example, producing books or booklets that help teachers and teacher educators understand how to teach literacy.

Educational research should be carried out into young learners becoming literate in African languages, for example, the role of phonological awareness. READ should be involved in research projects of this nature.

Overall, the evaluator was quite impressed and thought the “materials are excellent”. As someone who has “worked on curriculum, it is wonderful to see it interpreted in such an exemplary way”.

6.3 Classroom observations and interviews

The Zenex-READ project was slow to start in 2006 but, both educators and learners, are showing enthusiasm for the project and are looking forward to implementing the project in January 2007.

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Educators are confident that learners will benefit immensely in all four language modes. They are gaining confidence to express themselves both orally and in writing.

The new methodologies using the READ materials have augmented the educators’ classroom techniques and provided a wide array of new shared reading and independent activities. The Big Books are a resounding success and both educators and learners are enjoying the new experience of a variety of shared reading activities. The learners are enjoying the group readers.

Educators are showing new confidence in integrating numerous assessment standards through the balanced language approach into their lessons and are comfortable implementing the national curriculum Statements across all the Language Outcomes.

The learner reading test also revealed that learners in the project schools were much better able to read books than the control schools. They have a higher level of phonic awareness and recognise words much quicker than those in control schools.

Observations and interviews with educators and principals, as well as with the trainer, suggest that as teachers are gaining more experience it has become much easier to achieve the outcomes of the courses trained. Continued support and revision workshops conducted for Courses 1 and 2 proved successful and very useful. The internal monitoring being done by READ is an important strategy used by the project: teachers find this very useful as it “keeps them on their toes” and ensures that implementers themselves are aware of what teachers are and are not doing or can and cannot do. Their quarterly reports discuss all these issues succinctly and honestly.

The project has achieved the outcomes set in terms of improving classroom practice for the first set of courses trained. In all the project school classrooms which were visited, the Teacher’s Book is readily available and being used effectively. There is evidence of planning and preparation by teachers, as well as achievement of the relevant learning outcomes and assessment standards as set out in the National Curriculum. All lessons in the programme were given by the teachers for the units that had been completed.

The checklists given to teachers by READ are easy and user friendly, however, the document review of the evaluation revealed that not all teachers are completing them regularly. This is supported by READ’s internal monitoring. Their October 2006 monitoring report stated that 85% of teachers now using checklists and 89% of teachers being able to provide evidence of continuous learner observation and assessment. This is a marked improved over the previous quarter.

In terms of development of reading and writing skills, project schools were much better able to do this than their control school counterparts. In terms of completion of units by project schools, most schools have completed most of the unit exercises (UA, UB, UC, UD and UE). Additionally, project schools have shown more evidence of homework than control schools. This was evidenced by the completed homework sheets in all project schools which were visited.

The more the programme is used, the more effective the implementation becomes. Implementation is speeded up as the teachers become familiar with the programme. In this regard, the programme is particularly easy to implement, as each module contains a simple series of lessons that is followed systematically and sequentially. Compared to more complicated programmes, this empowers teachers and gives them confidence.

The enthusiasm of the learners, the teachers and principals seems to have had a positive effect on the implementation of the project. The enthusiasm has spilled over to the district level as well. The subject advisor for Queenstown is insisting that all schools be given the opportunity to use these materials.

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6.3 Learner testing

The Zenex-READ project schools were consistently better than the C1 schools and C2 schools on the learner test, attaining a mean score of 67%. C1 schools performed the worst overall, achieving a mean score of 57%. . This suggests that the READ intervention is having a positive effect on schools which have had exposure to this intervention. At a district level, Lady Frere (considered in this case as the rural district) performed better than Queenstown (considered in this case as the urban district), with means of 67% and 64% respectively.

6.4 Did the project meet its objectives?

The project results are that:

I. a world class, book based Language and Literacy Programme in IsiXhosa and IsiZulu for Grade 1 be produced;

II. these developed materials be piloted in a group of schools in Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal and would be available to other schools at a low price;

III. 75-100 teachers in the pilot group will be able to use the materials to teach Language and Literacy effectively in either isiXhosa or isiZulu;

IV. The pilot group teachers’ ability will be enhanced by 10-15% over and above any improvement to the IEP project;

V. Approximately 4000 learners in the pilot group will attain the entire Grade 1 RNCS Home Language Assessment standards in their Home Language in all the Learning Outcomes set for language;

VI. Each learner will be able to read all 20 books in the programme and will be able to interpret the text and pictures in a meaningful way;

VII. Learners will show a 10-15% enhancement regarding language ability as defined by the RNCS; and

VIII. Long term, the learners will show a 10-20% enhancement in English, Mathematics and Science.

The materials evaluation has clearly shown that Result I has been attained successfully.

In relation to Result II, the monitoring reports have reported that the materials have been piloted successfully in the two provinces identified for this project: Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal. According the READ information 50 schools are participating in each of these provinces.

The evaluation visited 32 schools in total, of which 24 were project schools and 8 were control schools. Of these 32 schools, 10 were visited by researchers (6 project and 4 control) where classroom observations, interviews, etc were conducted. The findings of the evaluation show that all project teachers in the sampled schools (n=6) are able to use the materials to teach Language and Literacy in isiXhosa effectively. Based on interviews with teachers and trainers, teachers are seemingly cascading the information to other teachers in their school. Therefore, in terms of Result III the evaluation did not specifically assess this except for the six project schools identified for class visits. However, the READ monitoring reports seem to suggest that this objective has been attained successfully. See table 37 below (taken from the October 2006 monitoring report).

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Table 37: Monitoring statistics reported for period July to September 2006

Delegates at training Schools monitored Delegates monitoredCourse 1 89 from 51 schools 53 visits to 35 schools 67

Course 2 97 from 51 schools 16 visits to 15 schools 20

Course 3 57 from 42 schools 2 visits to 2 schools 3

The evaluation was also able to show that most learners from project schools are able to competently read any one of the 20 books in the programme. Follow up questions of what they read revealed that they are able to interpret the text and the pictures in a meaningful way, much more so than the control schools. This suggests that the project seems to have successfully attained Result VI.

In terms of Result V, the evaluation showed that teachers are better able to cover the RNCS than the control school counterparts involved in IEP. However, whether the difference is 10-15% is beyond the scope of this evaluation.

Similarly, in relation to Result VI and Result VII there seems to be evidence that learners in project schools are attaining more aspects of the RNCS in their home language than are the control schools and are therefore better at reading, interpreting text and writing.

The evaluation was not able to assess whether Result VIII was achieved. This is because the design of the evaluation was not long term and did not assess learners in mathematics and science. However, anecdotal evidence from teachers suggests that there has been an improvement in Numeracy since the implementation of the READ/ZENEX project in its schools.

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