The set up and work of the Consolidated Literacy Working Group
The Consolidated Literacy Working Group (CLWG) was the result of a merger in late 2016 between two literacy working groups (both with a special focus on reading), one working on the teaching of literacy in African languages and the other working on the teaching of literacy in English First Additional language (FAL), together with some components that had originally been part of what became the Knowledge Management Working Group.
This merger has worked extremely well. Professor Kerryn Dixon was appointed as the Coordinator and the was succeeded in 2019 by Professor Elizabeth Pretorius. Ms Aneesha Mayet was appointed Workgroup Manager in mid-2108.
Activities of the group
Higher Education Institution audit
The group began its work with an attempt during 2016 and 2017 to collect information from the universities to enable analysis of the current and planned language and literacy components of their teacher training programmes. Unfortunately, this audit was badly hampered by the “Fees Must Fall” disruptions, but work has continued in 2018.
The Annotated bibliographies
An annotated bibliography Reading in the African Languages: An annotated bibliography 2004-2017 on research into early reading development (including decoding in languages with similar morphology and orthography) was completed by Professor Elizabeth Pretorius, placed on this website and launched at a workshop on 9 April 2018.
Follow up research will be done on the developing decoding strategies for African languages and a full literature review.
A similar annotated bibliography on Reading in English as an Additional Language is near completion.
Developing Literacy teaching core competency standards
The brief for the Literacy teaching core competency standards sub-project was to do an Annotated list of readings on literacy teacher competencies and standards. This was completed in early 2018 and placed on the website. This literature was then used for an analysis of language and literacy teaching Consolidated Literacy Working Group (CLWG) competencies required by new teachers which would be compared with the presumed competencies developed in the actual courses/modules currently or about to be run by HEIs. From this analysis the CLWG engaged in an intensive process to develop its own draft of core competency standards that can be used to guide the development and delivery of components of teacher education programmes. A consultation was held on 4 May 2018 to examine these draft standards, and, after various revisions were made, there will be a further wider consultation process.
Curriculum Framework
A draft Curriculum Framework was discussed at a workshop in January 2019.
Assessment of literacy teacher graduates
A sub-project to develop competency assessment items will then develop assessment of competency items for use by the Assessment Working group. Work will be done with this latter group to develop items and rubrics for assessing the achievement of core language and literacy teaching competencies. The CLWG will also consider where language items can be combined with literacy items.
A number of journal articles by Consolidated Literacy Working Group members have been placed on the website.
