After the release of the Reading Panel’s 2023 report, we have again been reminded of the shocking state of reading competence in our schools.
One Twitter headline “shouted out” that first grade children don’t know the letters of the alphabet. One must wonder how knowing names of letters help a novice reader to get acquainted with the “squiggles” on the page, which is how neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene refers to words on a page for a pre-literate child? How do these little “squiggles” get linked with the sounds of the language that a child knows? How do they learn to associate the sounds in words with the letters on the page?
I do not think knowing the alphabetic names of letters is much help at the outset of a child’s reading journey, although they do come in handy when children learn to write and when teachers talk about spelling. In one school in Johannesburg, teachers do not use letter names until the fourth grade. In the schools in Soweto where we do most of our research, the letter names are mostly referred to in English and not in the home language. Does this mean that one can learn to read Setswana, using English letter names? I don’t think that would be the best option.
“Letter names” could even become obstructive when children begin to associate sounds with letters. In several studies at our university, we have found that learning to read requires, firstly, of a child to see/notice individual letters (or pairs and threesomes) and learn which sound they represent — not their “names”.
Although the sound is only one sound, it can be represented by several letters together. Single sounds are known as “phonemes” in the teaching community. And the letter (or a group of letters together), representing one sound, are known as “graphemes”.
So, when children learn to associate a single sound with its written partner, they take an important step in their reading journey — they begin to decode written language. And gradually, through much practice and repetition, novice readers learn to recognise strings of letters (graphemes) and say them aloud as “phonemes”.
They begin to “see” written language differently and associate it with the sounds of their language — and then — ultimately, the words of their language. Understanding the meaning of the words which they can decode sets them on a road to reading sentences, to learn the meaning of more words and eventually to write their language and to read it with understanding.
What, then, goes wrong when young children do not learn to read (always with meaning, otherwise it cannot be regarded as proper “reading”)? What happens in the classrooms of the foundation phase that make it so hard for young children to learn to read in their home language?
The curriculum is fine-tuned and if it is implemented systematically, it could work well. Admittedly, it is very hard for teachers to teach initial reading in large classes, where individual interaction between learners and their teacher is minimal and “choral” — responses are typical. Added to that, teachers attend several professional development workshops every year. Well-intentioned as these may be, the workshop training often confuses them.
Also, the “scripted lessons” provided for teaching beginner reading can be helpful or unhelpful. For inexperienced teachers, such lesson plans may be useful tools. Experienced teachers, though, often find that it restricts their teaching.
Another phenomenon which is common in foundation phase classrooms is the notice board that displays alphabet charts in upper and lower case, coupled with a picture of an object. It seems to be a good idea. I am not sure if it is for a six-year-old child; such “busy” walls detract from the learning action of the moment. In the first few weeks of learning to read, children have to listen to how the teachers pronounce a phoneme and keep their eyes focused on the specific grapheme that represents the sound — not the entire alphabet.
We know that the daily work of an early grades teacher comprises much more than teaching initial reading. Along with teaching all the other subjects, they have a heavy load of administrative work. Although teaching assistants have been helpful, they have not been trained and have little experience of working in a busy classroom, where so much happens in a single day.
An example of the complexities of teaching children to read is written up in the doctoral research of Fikile Simelane, who studied reading competence and the teaching of reading in a school where isiZulu is the medium of instruction. The children come from homes where isiZulu is spoken. In a random sample of 287 from 1198 foundation phase learners, she assessed their reading, using an instrument, to which The Reading Panel 23 also refers — the Early Grades Reading Assessment (EGRA). It was evident that very few of the 287 learners in the sample were reading on par with the benchmarks for Nguni languages. Their comprehension of the text they had read was limited.
Simelane also observed lessons over a period of two months and conducted interviews with 24 foundation phase teachers. The teachers pointed out that they know very little about the “science of reading”. Their education and training have focused on methods and techniques, but they had little knowledge of what happens in the children’s vision, their listening, and their mental processing of the information that the teachers convey.
When teachers felt unsure of the technique they were using, they simply switched to another one. In one class the “phoneme of the week” was mixed with several other phonemes and the teacher admitted that she and others felt “swamped” — not so much by teaching a large class, but by the mixed messages they were receiving about how to teach. They wanted to know more about the science of reading and wanted to know why they were using a specific method or materials.
When she was rounding off her study, she suggested a model of teaching first-grade children to read in isiZulu in the first weeks of the year. She proposed a rather radical model of teaching, focused on the sounds of the language — referred to in education circles as “phonological awareness” training.
She suggested using audio recordings optimally to sharpen listening and clear enunciation. At some point, more or less in the third week, she suggested starting to link individual sounds (phonemes) to their graphemic counterparts. From there on the typical phonics teaching could continue. She also suggested using letter names only once learners were able to decode successfully.
Perhaps many other teachers have had the same experience as the ones in Simelane’s study. In a recently published book, we contributed a chapter about the science of reading in a foundation phase teacher’s toolkit. Her PhD study opened a window for not only more research, but also for teacher development programmes that can be useful for teachers to understand the psychology of learning to read.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.
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