The vast majority of our Grade 4 pupils cannot read for meaning, according to a recent survey, and now an innovative group is tackling the crisis with an approach that has had extraordinary success elsewhere in Africa.
Their highly successful model originated decades ago in South Africa but was dumped when the education system was overhauled in 1994.
Masennya Dikotla, who leads the Molteno Language and Literacy Institute, said the model it was trying to roll out nationally — dubbed Breakthrough to Literacy — uses children's home languages and flash cards to draw on their existing knowledge of sounds, or phonics.
The approach starts with a sentence from a story and breaks it down into sounds, syllables and letters, rather than the other way around. Over the years, the tools have been "refreshed" with pictures and conversational posters for rural, urban and peri-urban settings.Instead of children being assailed with English words they must learn out of context — considered the main barrier to literacy — comprehension of the bigger picture happens at the same time.
"Through this method, children are able to read and decode in the first four months of Grade 1. Those who have used it can, in Grade 1, read at the international standard for Grade 4," said Dikotla.
The model was developed at Rhodes University in the 1970s and over the next two decades it was tested throughout the country and found to be unrivalled.
Other African countries that were grappling with their literacy problems and the impact of colonial languages adapted what was then known as the Molteno approach. Today, more than 10million African children have used it successfully, and in Zambia it has been rolled out in every primary school.
Evaluations keep returning the same results: Breakthrough to Literacy pupils are three to four times more advanced than their counterparts.
Earlier this week, academics from around the world who reviewed 300 studies examining the phonics versus whole language approach to teaching literacy concluded that both were needed to work together for the best literacy results. And that is precisely what Breakthrough to Literacy does.FIVE HUNDRED SCHOOLS
One of the biggest issues it overcomes is the "chorusing" that happens in South African schools, where children repeat English sentences in unison after the teacher has read them out.
Also, not everyone who can speak a language can teach it. "There are deliveries of textbooks, which then sit in a storeroom because teachers don't know how to use them," said Dikotla, adding that the Breakthrough to Literacy approach even works well in a classroom with 60 pupils and minimal resources.
The model is currently in 500 schools in North West, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape and the institute hopes to scale up its efforts with support from the government and corporations.
"Our appeal is for the country to relax and use a national asset that is already there - let us know why they aren't using it when other countries are coming to take it from us," said Dikotla...