Caregivers’ reading practices to promote literacy in a South African children’s home: Experiences and perceptions

Background: Exposure to social trauma influences the psychosocial experiences of vulnerable children. This affects their positive development, consequentially resulting in poor scholastic progress. South Africa’s history of inequality and injustice has compounded the current social, educational and economic situation, highlighting the need for research on children in care. A paucity of published studies exists on caregiver facilitation of literacy skills among vulnerable populations in South African children’s homes. The purpose of this paper is to describe the reading practices that caregivers in one children’s home (orphanage) used to promote literacy development.   Method: An exploratory, descriptive contextual design was implemented, using inductive and interpretative approaches. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion were conducted. Ten caregivers, who supervised children aged 9–10 years at the home, consented to be participants. Applied content thematic analysis was used to interpret the data obtained.   Findings: The caregivers at the children’s home were implementing some reading strategies, but they did not engage sufficiently in self-reflection on the reading processes. The caregivers used relevant reading strategies, such as asking questions to develop understanding and memory recall. They encouraged dialogue through characterisation, where the children acted out the roles of the main characters. These reading strategies demonstrate the quality of the mediation.   Conclusions: Speech–language therapists have a role in prevention and promotion programmes in children’s homes. They should advocate for, collaborate on and support caregivers’ facilitation of early literacy skills in these homes, as the link between literacy and language cannot be ignored. Providing guidelines and sharing knowledge on reading instruction for the children are essential in improving the literacy rates in vulnerable populations. Language and literacy interventions are only effective and meaningful if the social and cultural contexts are considered. Such interventions would add value and constitute a step towards redressing past inequalities in South Africa. These results contribute to our understanding of context when developing literacy programmes. The sample size was a limitation. However, the aim was not about generalisation but to gain an insight into caregiver reading practices so that literacy programmes are built on these strengths

How can Speech Language Therapists and Audiologists enhance language and literacy outcomes in South Africa? (And why we urgently need to)

Basic education in South Africa faces a crisis as learners fail to achieve the necessary outcomes in the related areas of language and literacy. The aims of this paper are twofold. Firstly, we aim to describe and discuss the education crisis by outlining the educational landscape, relevant policy imperatives and implementation challenges in post-apartheid education. The systemic factors contributing to the literacy crisis are emphasised. Secondly, we argue that speech language therapists and audiologists (SLTAs) have a role to play in supporting basic education in South Africa through developing language and literacy. It is suggested that the professions of speech-language pathology and audiology must be socially responsive and population-focused in order to make meaningful contributions to development in South Africa. The potential roles of SLTAs are discussed with suggestions for further actions required by the professions to enable a contextually relevant practice in a resource-constrained environment

How can speech-language therapists and audiologists enhance language and literacy outcomes in South Africa? (And why we urgently need to)

Basic education in South Africa faces a crisis as learners fail to achieve the necessary outcomes in the related areas of language and literacy. The aims of this paper are twofold. Firstly, we aim to describe and discuss the education crisis by outlining the educational landscape, relevant policy imperatives and implementation challenges in post-apartheid education. The systemic factors contributing to the literacy crisis are emphasised. Secondly, we argue that speech language therapists and audiologists (SLTAs) have a role to play in supporting basic education in South Africa through developing language and literacy. It is suggested that the professions of speech-language pathology and audiology must be socially responsive and population-focused in order to make meaningful contributions to development in South Africa. The potential roles of SLTAs are discussed with suggestions for further actions required by the professions to enable a contextually relevant practice in a resource-constrained environment.http://www.sajcd.org.za/index.php/SAJCDnf201

Effectiveness of metacognitive instruction on reading comprehension among intermediate phase learners : its link to the PASS theory.

Explicit metacognitive instruction is hypothesised to have positive consequences for the cognitive processing skills of learners, resulting in improved academic performance. Such instruction is likely to be beneficial across the curriculum, but particularly for reading, as low literacy levels are reported in South Africa. A paradigm shift in instruction appears necessary to enhance the current literacy levels in South African schools. This study examined the impact of a Cognitive Enrichment Advantage (CEA), metacognitive intervention on reading comprehension in 83 Grade six learners in two mainstream government schools in Gauteng. Its theoretical and conceptual basis was informed by Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development and Feuerstein’s theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability. The study utilised a pre-and post-test, mixed methods, quasi-experimental and cross-lagged research design. The metacognitive intervention was presented to two groups within the experimental school, each with 28 learners, who received the intervention over two phases in the school year (Group one in Term 1 and Group 2 in Term 2). The control school received only regular classroom teaching and served as a comparison against which the experimental school could be measured. Standardised quantitative data was collected from the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) and the Joint Education Trust (JET) reading comprehension test. Qualitative data was collected from semi-structured interviews, sentence completion tasks, focus groups and feedback from the teacher and parents, pre- and post-intervention. The results indicated that the learners in the experimental school did not show any statistically significant differences in their reading comprehension or CAS scores following the intervention, when compared to the control school. However, the qualitative data revealed increased awareness of the effects of the metacognitive instruction on reading in particular and on learning in general. The intervention also provided opportunities for the learners to reflect on their thinking processes through group discussions, as well as individual tasks. Transfer of skills taught in the intervention could not be confirmed, as post-test results may reflect application when assessed immediately following the intervention, but may not necessarily indicate precise or sustained transfer. Nevertheless, increased learner, parent and teacher metacognitive awareness was evident in the qualitative responses following the intervention and this provides an indication for how educational pedagogy in South Africa could be adjusted. Metacognitive instruction promotes reflection, evaluation and monitoring of thinking and learning processes which may not be observed on the quantitative measures over the duration of this study, but may need a longer period to become consolidated and transfer to other areas. This study contributed to the knowledge base regarding cognitive education, by demonstrating the qualitative value of explicit metacognitive instruction in reading comprehension

Global TALES Project Protocol 2018

Download our protocol to elicit personal narrative language samples from children and adolescents using 6 simple prompts. Updates and translations are posted here