One of the biggest developmental challenges facing the country, is that many South African children are unable to read for meaning. Poor reading proficiency impacts negatively on learning in the foundation phase and beyond.
Various initiatives have been developed by the DBE to address reading challenges and literacy. These initiatives include structured reading programmes such as the first Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS) developed in collaboration with academics at the University of the Witwatersrand, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and Georgetown University in 2015; and the second EGRS in 2017 that sought to provide support to teachers in the Foundation Phase in teaching English as a First Additional Language (EFAL), since most learners need to learn in English from Grade 4. The second EGRS was implemented in two districts in 180 schools in the Mpumalanga Province. The EGRS interventions provided teachers with additional reading materials and a structured learning programme aligned to the CAPS curriculum, but differ on how training and support were provided.
The Early Grade Reading Programme (EGRP) is the most recent iteration of the structured reading programmes and an integrated response to the literacy and reading challenges South Africa currently faces. The EGRP, along with the partner funding organisations, the Hempel Foundation, UNICEF, North West Department of Education and the Zenex Foundation hosted the EGRP Principals Launch with participating schools in the Dr Ruth S Mompati (RSM) District in the North-West Province on 1 December 2020. This was an event aimed at orientating and solidifying relations between the North-West Province Department of Education (DoE) who are providing overall support as well as training venues, the RSM District and the school SMTs’ in the region. Furthermore, the EGRP Principals Launch intended to familiarise these stakeholders with the EGRP research design and garner support to enable high attendance during implementation at teacher training venues where materials such as computer tablets containing lesson plans and LTSM such as big books and reading anthologies have been distributed during term one training in February 2021. Preparations for term 2 are underway and the dates and venues for teacher training are secured for April 2021.
As such, the EGRP contains two extensions of the EGRS interventions which are planned for the period between 2021 and 2023. The first, seeks to implement programmatic elements of EGRS on a larger scale, including innovations to ensure the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of the proposed models, and establishing how to create and sustain improvements in teaching practices. The second extension will use an Outcomes-Based Contracting approach to pilot a coaching intervention that supports both the Setswana Home Language and EFAL.
Finally, another strategy to improve reading fluency is teaching children in their Home Language. In 2019, the DBE, in collaboration with USAID, South African academics, reading practitioners and international benchmarking experts, began exploring the feasibility of developing reading benchmarks in African Languages in South Africa. The development of reading benchmarks in English as EFAL and Setswana Home Language is currently underway. The next step would be to develop benchmarks for the Sotho-Tswana language group for which there is a seemingly good amount of data available. Benchmarks for Setswana are already being developed, with the remaining two languages in this group being Sepedi and Sesotho. Developing benchmarks in the remaining languages, isiNdebele, Afrikaans, Xitsonga, and Tshivenda will require significant investment since there is no readily available data that can be used to set these benchmarks.