ELABORACIÓN DEL PROYECTO POR EL GRUPO

Culture includes attitudes, beliefs and values and the language patterns that carry these. In critical realist studies, discourses are understood to function as mechanisms at the level of the Real. So, when considering a reading culture, we need to examine what is said about reading at national levels. Public commentary can indicate attitudes as to how reading is valued; understandings of reading and literacy practices and also the relevance of reading in education.

5.3.1 The discourse of the ‘poor  reader’

Media discourse includes alarmist reports about South African children’s poor reading, maths and literacy abilities as measured on the international reading test, PIRLS and the local ANAs. Low measurements of literacy on these tests are reported in national and local newspapers and are used to indicate the poor level of schooling and, in particular, inferior literacy education. While it is useful to have a comparison with levels of literacy in other countries - and PIRLS offers a detailed commentary of the 2006 and 2011 results - it must be noted that conditions in South Africa are particularly challenging. One challenge relates to the varieties of languages used in schools and homes. Linguistic variation is particularly significant as many children have a range of languages to draw on which may or may not be recognised or taught at schools. What PIRLS cannot do is allow the learner to choose the language in which to write the test. Although PIRLS tries to test learners’

literacy levels in their language of learning and teaching, or LoLT, this may not be the language in which learners have developed reading and writing skills. Another challenge connected to languages relates to the regional variations in the African languages, as well as the practice of mixing languages that is more common in urban settings: hence it is difficult to pinpoint, for some learners, what language is dominant for learning and literacy (Howie & Van Staden, 2008).

Another facet of discourse about literacy is its alleged enabling effect. Although school-based literacy practices do allow learners to access particular, powerful forms of knowledge, it is not literacy per se which empowers learners but rather particular

literacies. School-based literacy practices provide access to powerful knowledge (Wheelahan 201) but for some learners it is more difficult to access these practices than for others.

5.3.2 The discourse of ‘poor reading teaching’

Various guiding documents in relation to policy and practice have been produced by the National Education Department and more recently by the Department of Basic Education or DoE. Within education documents, the National Reading Strategy and

Teaching Reading in the Early Grades, both produced in 2008, were evidence of a concern with addressing shortcomings in the teaching of reading. Both recommend a mastery of basic skills, such as phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension as the necessary bedrock for improving reading performance. Both documents stress the need for developing comprehension and for making meaning from texts and the need to focus on the learners’ responses. In fact the suggested methodology encourages teachers to draw on learners’ personal appreciation and understanding of texts. This approach affirms learners’

understandings drawn from the intersection of the text and their knowledge of the world. In turn learners’ own interpretations support their growing perception of themselves as readers whose views are valid and valuable. These attempts to encourage meaningful responses are in line with both Rosenblatt’s (1983) reader response theory which recognises the primacy of the personal response, and also

Street’s  (1984) ideological model.

The publication of two documents by the Education department in 2008 suggests a concerted effort at that point to address reading challenges. This may have been in response to the 2007 publication of the PIRLS 2006 International Report in which South Africa’s grade 4 and 5 learners fared so poorly in the languages in which they had been taught for four years. The spotlight on reading for enjoyment and reading for information revealed the limited range of reading achievement in South African schools, as well as the gaps in reading skills. If at grades 4 and 5 South African learners were the weakest in the world, how would this be corrected in succeeding grades and for successive cohorts of learners? Hence Teaching Reading in the Early Grades suggested classroom practices for grades R to 6 so that the needs of poorly

performing learners, tested by PIRLS in 2006, could still be addressed.

Both DoE publications are based on certain assumptions. The first of these is the assumption that all teachers are familiar with the five components of reading as well as different reading strategies. The documents therefore serve to remind them of

these, and of the need to teach all elements and also to plan and practice different reading strategies with learners. An example is given of strategies used by the ‘skilful

reader’ who makes meaning while reading and is active during pre, during and post-

reading stages. Another assumption is the availability of reading material: in other words that structurally there is a distribution of resources at teachers’ disposal to allow them to act on the advice of the handbooks. Teachers are exhorted to “Have

as many reading materials as possible in the classroom” (DoE, 2008a: 17) and to use textbooks from other learning areas as a resource to develop fluency. A goal of teaching reading is independent reading which is premised on learners choosing their own books from a reading corner, 100 storybooks, or the library (DoE, 2008a: 27) which again assumes the availability in the class of suitable, linguistically appropriate books. In order to meet the needs of different learners, teachers are encouraged to use group work so that groups can practice different skills with varying texts and extend their understanding with some imaginative activities during

‘Reading  and writing focus time’.

The DoE is to be commended for the many creative ideas for developing reading and writing included in these documents but I wonder to what extent teachers rise to the challenge of organising many parallel activities to allow learners choice and space to engage creatively with reading and writing. Besides an assumption that teachers are all very organised, it presumes an assortment of materials, including stationery, fabric, coloured paper, play-dough, stored in shoeboxes or ice-cream tubs at the disposal of the learners. It also presumes that homes support school literacy practices and that these are aligned with working class homes. If teachers are more used to whole class teaching and chanting together, the change to group reading activities might involve a change in pedagogic habitus (Gennrich & Janks, 2013), which does not happen easily.

If these documents are based on the assumption that teachers need help and guidance, then the learners, as subjects of the proposed teaching interventions, must be in even more need of help. These documents also presume that the basis for literacy learning and practice is the school and there is scant acknowledgment of the social embeddedness of literacy recognised by Street (1984). It would seem that the DoE is providing a road map for literacy as if it were a straight line to be followed,

whereas a more iterative responsive is advocated by the New London Group (1996: 64) who suggest a pedagogical approach where

language and other modes of meaning are dynamic representational resources, constantly being remade by their users as they work to achieve various cultural purposes.

Whether the DoE is aware of other possibilities or is tailoring its guidance to the needs of the majority of teachers, a significant component of literacy in terms of social embeddedness has been overlooked. The DoE approach seems premised on a generic ‘one size fits all’ approach which ignores the realities of social context and the diverse learning and community contexts in which schooling is situated.

5.3.3 The discourse of ‘reading as a foundation for advancement’

Learners themselves seem to be positively disposed towards reading as it is seen as a stepping stone or foundation of a good education. In this they are probably echoing parental sentiments about how reading will help. Generally learners at this school claimed to have been taken to libraries and to be relatively positive about reading. In discussions with grade 8 learners, most learners claimed to be good at reading but could not name titles or authors they had read, which supports Matjila & Pretorius’s

(2004) assertion that reading has a strong appeal but is a novel process in poorer schools. One learner who indicated she disliked reading elaborated that she was shy and did not like everyone listening to her. Her experiences of school reading were based on learners having to read aloud for marks rather than silently reading for pleasure. Drawing on learners’ self-reporting in the PIRLS 2006 report, we could infer some overlap with this cohort who would have been in grade 3 when PIRLS 2006 data were collected.

Although South African learners achieved the lowest overall results in both reading for information and reading for pleasure in the PIRLS 2006 data, they were not at the bottom of all the tables. South African grade 4s claimed to spend up to two hours a day reading for information and reading on the internet (Mullis, Martin, Kennedy & Foy, 2007). This clearly did not correlate with their achievements in reading for information or in the reported access to computers as only 3% rated highly in terms of home access to educational resources – these included a selection of books in the

home, a desk, a computer, a child’s own books and the educational level of one parent. This would seem a significant indicator of reading achievement as this 3%’s

score on PILRS was 528 (Ibid, 111) - one of the few occasions where a statistic for South African learners rose above the PIRLS average of 500 points. However despite purportedly spending the most time on reading for information, fewer South African grade 4s claimed they enjoyed reading compared to other countries at 35% (Ibid, 141).

While my specific learners did not participate in PIRLS and this data was obtained from grade 4 rather than grade 8 learners, the PIRLS data is still relevant. It presents a slice of achievements, attitudes and contributing factors to literacy as captured in South Africa in 2006. It is conceivable that, in general, the learners in this study would have exhibited similar attitudes and achieved at a similar rate a year later when they were in grade 4. The contexts of school, classroom and home, as well as literacy attitudes and practices in all of these contexts, would not have changed significantly for the bulk of the learners since primary school, so PIRLS data is a useful indicator of learners’ practices and comments about reading and writing.

5.3.4 The discourse of the ‘non-reader’

Within Bay High School teachers had expressed concerns about grade 8 reading abilities for a number of years and these concerns stimulated this study. Besides statements like ”the grade 8s can’t read”, teachers did not specify what they meant by reading. It is presumed they meant that the grade 8s could not derive meaning from text and some could not decode text fluently as evidenced in a reluctance and an inability to read aloud. This view is supported by the PIRLS data. If the learners at grades 3 and 4 in 2006 were struggling to find explicit information in texts (PIRLS) after three years of instruction in reading, it is unlikely that reading improved after grade 4 when there is less direct instruction either in what Street (1984) terms the

‘technology’ of reading (i.e. decoding skills) or in specific reading practices. Teachers

at high school felt ill-equipped to address any gaps in reading development which they felt should have been dealt with in primary school. In their training and teaching experience they had little exposure to teaching the basic phonics and phoneme awareness that they felt was needed.