South Africa is still reeling from the Pirls (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) data that showed 81% of our grade 4 pupils cannot understand what they read. Here’s the good news. There are enough reading brains and citizen initiative in this country to solve the reading crisis within one year. How do I know this? I just saw two recent initiatives that blew my mind.
Click Learning is easily one of the most impressive NGO initiatives I have yet seen in the reading space. After a treacherous early morning drive into Khayelitsha where massive potholes, non-working robots and speeding taxis make you grateful for your life insurance, I drove onto the grounds of Sosebenza Primary School where a small miracle awaited.
Behind a closed door sat about 30 children each wearing headphones connected to a state-of-the-art computer loaded with interactive software. The children hardly blinked when the five adult strangers entered the room because they were talking to the computer as it prompted their responses to a series of questions.
The quality of the images was high, the real-time tests of their knowledge were engaging and the feedback instant on what they got right or wrong. Each at their own pace, every child was fully engaged as they pronounced the English words.
Government is nowhere to be seen as these communities rely largely on themselves, external funders and reading volunteers to make these reading programmes work.
Sit down if this is going to upset you. From preschool through the primary grades, the children learn in English.
What happened, I asked the teachers and principal in attendance, to the policy that transitions children from isiXhosa to English in grade 4? Nobody was listening. Here we teach English. And the results are amazing. This clearly disadvantaged school in an underserved township produces some of the best systemic results, as these standardised tests for literacy and numeracy are called, in the area and in the province.
Click Learning is killing several birds with one powerful reading development stone. The rich online materials are also used by the teachers as background resources for their own education. Since teachers explain much of the variance in reading outcomes, I have no doubt that in this poor community the educators use the available resources to improve their own language and reading capacities. Young facilitators in the room not only learn to read English themselves after a spell of training, they learn real skills that improve their job prospects on the open market. And of course, the children for the first time get a healthy dose of digital education that would benefit their broader learning as well.
The most important value of Click Learning, however, is its high motivational value. The children cannot wait to use these devices and learn from the online reading programmes. It is, truth be told, a wonderful diversion from the drudgery of teacher-led instruction that dominates much of a school day.
Here, before my very eyes, is an instant solution to the reading crisis.
On the other side of the Cape, about 35km away in the sprawling township ofMasiphumelele, I am about to witness a second reading miracle. Entering Ukhanyo Primary School one is immediately aware of a well-managed educational space with children in all-white sports clothing walking single-file to be received by coaches for their physical education. Not a paper litters the playgrounds. Every teacher is teaching.
And then I enter a classroom where an enthusiastic teacher is taking the children through an English reading lesson. The words of Incy Wincy Spider are projected on a screen. Several table groups are writing and listening as the high-energy teacher takes them through their spaces.
I was exhausted watching the movement of children from desk to the floor in front of the screen and back again in well-organised groups as they made the hand movements indicating the spider’s movement “up and down again”. The teacher’s English is perfect, her explanations (like what does “Incy Wincy” actually mean?) perfect, and her ability to call on a child while progressing the lesson is mastery pedagogy like you seldom see.
In the background are young teacher facilitators to assist the lead teacher but also learning how to teach reading in a systematic way.
We open another classroom door and there, in a smaller space, is an older woman with about 4 or 5 children reading the same book together and then each child gets a turn to answer questions posed by the adult about what happened in the storybook. I marvelled at how small-group instruction in reading complements classroom teaching in larger groups.
Needless to say, the reading outcomes at this school are excellent.
There is so much to take away from Sosebenza and Ukhanyo. One, government is nowhere to be seen as these communities rely largely on themselves, external funders and reading volunteers to make these reading programmes work.
Two, whether using innovative technologies (Sosebenza) or traditional teaching methods (Ukhanyo), you can raise literacy outcomes in our schools through dedicated, enthusiastic, high-energy teachers who can organise their limited resources around the teaching of reading.
In short, the solution to the reading crisis lies within the schools themselves with a little help from outside.
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