Pupils taught through the medium of isiXhosa, isiZulu and Siswati will be expected to read 20 and 35 correct words per minute in their vernacular by the end of grade 2 and 3 respectively.
In comparison, Sesotho and Setswana speakers will be required to recite 40 correct words in grade 2 and 60 in grade 3.
The reading fluency to be achieved by Afrikaans home language speakers is 50 words in grade 2 and 80 in grade 3.
Pupils whose home language is not English will need to read at least 30 correct words in English first additional language by the end of grade 2 and 50 by the end of grade 3.
These new reading benchmarks have been set after collaboration by the department of basic education with various stakeholders on the establishment of early-grade reading benchmarking for all 11 official languages.
The Western Cape education department issued a circular dated March 29 instructing schools to implement the new benchmarks from this month onwards.
Basic education department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga told TimesLIVE Premium that the benchmarks set key thresholds of early reading outcomes, such as reading fluency (words read correctly per minute) “that are necessary for children to reach in grades 1, 2 and 3 to be on track to read with adequate comprehension by the age of 10”.
The majority of pupils across the country are taught in their mother tongue in grades 1, 2 and 3 and are also exposed to English first additional language in these grades because most pupils are taught in English from grade 4 onwards.
The 2016 round of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) revealed that 78% of grade 4 pupils could not read for meaning.
Mhlanga said that because of the different orthographic structures of the various languages, “these benchmarks need to be developed separately for the different language groups”.
Early-grade reading benchmarks have been developed and adopted for the Nguni language group, the Sotho-Tswana language group, English first additional language and Afrikaans.
Work on the first nationally representative survey of measuring pupils’ achievements against these benchmarks is under way to answer the question of how many 10-year-olds can read for meaning.
— Elijah Mhlanga, basic education department spokesman
He said that by using reading benchmarks, “we can categorise each pupil’s reading level to measure their progress during the year to see if they are reading on track for their grade”.
“Efforts are under way to benchmark Xitsonga, Tshivenda and English home language this year. This would conclude all the languages.”
Mhlanga said the development of multiple reading passages in all the languages for use in classrooms and by provinces was also planned for this year.
“Work on the first nationally representative survey of measuring pupils’ achievements against these benchmarks is under way to answer the question of how many 10-year-olds can read for meaning.”
Mlamli Diko, a lecturer in the department of African languages at the University of South Africa (Unisa), said the fact that isiXhosa home language pupils are placed at the margin “in respect of developing their language competencies, makes a mockery of the language and cognitive abilities of the pupils”.
“Why would there be a presumption that a grade 2 pupil would not be able to read more than 20 words (a minute) by the end of the year?”
Said Diko: “Afrikaans continues to be afforded more opportunities in several ways. It is these lingering colonial and/or apartheid tendencies that continue to reflect the romanticism of the colonial languages.”
But Nic Spaull, a research fellow in the Research on Socio-Economic Policy (ReSEP) unit at Stellenbosch University, who co-edited a research report titled “Early Grade Reading in South Africa”, said the reason the reading benchmarks were different for the languages was because the structure of each language was different.
“Languages like isiXhosa, isiZulu, Ndebele and Siswati have longer words, whereas Setswana and Sesotho have a lot of little, short words.
“It’s not that they are applying different standards to different languages. It’s the same standard, but it’s just calculated differently because of the structure of the language.”
Prof Cally Ardington, from the school of economics at the University of Cape Town, said if benchmarks are set so high as to be out of reach for the majority of early grade pupils, “they will not be useful in guiding and measuring incremental progress”.
“At the same time, they need to be ambitious enough to establish expectations that are sufficient to support meaningful improvements in early grade reading.
“The grade-specific benchmarks should not be considered aspirational, but indicate the minimum level all pupils need to reach by the end of the grade if they are to be on track for reading for meaning by the end of the foundation phase [grades R, 1, 2 and 3].”
Ardington said benchmarks across languages cannot be compared “due to phonological, morphological and orthographical differences between languages”.
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