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National Framework for the Teaching of Reading in African Languages in the Foundation Phase National Framework for the Teaching of Reading in African Languages in the Foundation Phase

The framework recognises that although learning to read is very similar across languages, differences in the way languages are structured and in their writing systems (orthographies) influence the reading process. The Framework seeks to help teachers and curriculum specialists understand that the reading approaches and methods on how to teach reading in African languages differs in some ways from English, especially with regard to the early stages of learning to read when children learn how to link letters to sounds, and to use this knowledge to read words (decoding). Currently, the influence of reading approaches used in English is so strong that it overrides the development of reading methods and pedagogies that are appropriate for African languages. The Framework unpacks the teaching of decoding skills (phonological awareness, phonics) and dense morphology that pose challenges for young children in the early stages of learning to read in African languages. The Framework emphasises that the morphological, phonological and orthographical features of African languages should be factored in the design of reading curricula, the development of teacher training programmes and assessment for African languages.

JET Education unites this Mandela Month 2019

Mandela Day is a global call to action that celebrates the idea that each individual has the power to transform the world, the ability to make an impact. JET Education rounds off Mandela Month, July 2019 at ASHA Sinethemba Early Childhood Development centre in Soweto, Johannesburg.

Implementation Evaluation of the National School Nutrition Programme Implementation Evaluation of the National School Nutrition Programme

The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) aims to improve the health and nutritional status of the poorest learners in South Africa. Its main objective is to enhance learning by providing a nutritious meal on time daily. The programme is of great strategic importance: it involves a large financial commitment from government (R5.3 billion), and reaches over 9 million learners. Given this, an implementation evaluation was commissioned by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, in collaboration with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and was conducted by JET Education Services.

Illiteracy: The neuropsychology of cognition without reading

This literature review records that learning to read reinforces and modifies certain fundamental abilities, such as verbal and visual memory, phonological awareness, and visuospatial and visuomotor skills and that that literacy and education influence the pathways used by the brain for problem-solving. It includes an interesting finding that learning to read in adulthood is a process supported by different brain structures from the ones used when learning occurs at the usual age in childhood.

Efficient learning for the poor: new insights into literacy acquisition for children.

Abadzi argues that reading depends on the speed of visual recognition and capacity of short term memory. To understand a sentence, the mind must read it fast enough to capture it within the limits of the short-term memory. This means that children must attain a minimum speed of fairly accurate reading to understand a passage. Learning to read involves “tricking” the brain into perceiving groups of letters as coherent words. This is achieved most efficiently by pairing small units consistently with sounds rather than learning entire words. To link the letters with sounds, explicit and extensive practice is needed; the more complex the spelling of a language, the more practice is necessary. All students should attain reading speeds of 45– 60 words per minute by the end of grade 2 and 120–150 words per minute for grades 6–8.

“Sixty words per minute for all”: Why this goal for the early grades?

Short paper arguing that failure to learn reading is the primary reason for repetition in the early grades. Students cannot learn from books until they can read fluently, and they may even be unable to solve verbal problems written in maths books. Abadzi argues that by by the end of grade 1 students should be able to read very common words, albeit haltingly. By the end of grade 2 at the latest, students should be reading simple texts fluently, at a rate of at least 60 words per minute.

Parts, Wholes and Context in reading: a triple dissociation

Elegant research study which found that the proportion of the three components of fluent reading are 62% phonic decoding, 16% whole (high frequency) word recognition, and 22% contextual clues. Each reading process always contributes the same number of words per minute, regardless of whether the other processes are operating.

The remarkable inefficiency of word recognition

Looks at the whether objects are recognized by parts or as wholes and looks specifically at word recognition, finding that a word is unreadable unless its letters are separately identifiable and that we never in fact learn to see a word as a whole feature. Our identification of a word is mediated by independent detection of components that are a letter or less.

An exploratory study of early letter-sound knowledge in a low socio-economic context in South Africa

A South African research study that argues for the importance of letter-sound knowledge in the earliest stages of children learning to read and in particular for children who come from poor socio-economic family backgrounds. She examines an intervention that focused on the teaching of letter-sound knowledge to pre-school children in the context of building language skills, emergent literacy and understanding print. She suggests that there is an urgent need for quality teacher training programmes for teachers of pre-school children.

Brain wave study shows how different teaching methods affect reading development

Popular report on Stanford University research led by Bruce McCandliss that provides some of the first evidence that a specific teaching strategy for reading has direct neural impact. Beginning readers who focus on letter-sound relationships, or phonics, instead of trying to learn whole words, increase activity in the area of their brains best wired for reading.

What we have learned in the past decade: RTI’s approach to early grade literacy instruction What we have learned in the past decade: RTI’s approach to early grade literacy instruction

A paper describes the core elements that we have found to improve early grade literacy instruction and learner outcomes: the approach to teaching, the availability of quality, relevant learner materials, the effective use of instructional time, the use of formative assessment to guide instruction, and provision of instruction in the most effective language. This paper focuses on the acquisition of literacy in alphabetic and alphasyllabic languages in the early primary years (most typically, academic levels 1 through 3) and the kinds of exposures, instruction, and support learners need to become fully literate. These are the elements of a literacy program that can be taught, that should be present in teaching and learning materials and in teacher trainings, and that relate specifically to what happens in a classroom.

What we have learned in the past decade: RTI’s approach to early grade literacy instruction What we have learned in the past decade: RTI’s approach to early grade literacy instruction

A paper describes the core elements that we have found to improve early grade literacy instruction and learner outcomes: the approach to teaching, the availability of quality, relevant learner materials, the effective use of instructional time, the use of formative assessment to guide instruction, and provision of instruction in the most effective language. This paper focuses on the acquisition of literacy in alphabetic and alphasyllabic languages in the early primary years (most typically, academic levels 1 through 3) and the kinds of exposures, instruction, and support learners need to become fully literate. These are the elements of a literacy program that can be taught, that should be present in teaching and learning materials and in teacher trainings, and that relate specifically to what happens in a classroom.

A seven year study of the effects of synthetic phonics teaching on reading and spelling attainment A seven year study of the effects of synthetic phonics teaching on reading and spelling attainment

The report of a groundbreaking, seven-year research trial that was a powerful influence on the British government adopting systematic phonics as the best foundation for teaching children to read at primary school. The study involved dividing around 300 Primary aged children into three groups. One group was taught via the synthetic phonics method, one by a standard analytic phonics programme, and the third by an analytics phonics programme which included systematic phonemic awareness teaching without reference to print. The outcomes of the study proved overwhelmingly that the synthetic phonics approach is more effective than the analytic phonics approach. At the end of the programme, the synthetic phonics-taught group were reading and spelling seven months ahead of their expected level. It has also proven to help close the gender gap with boys’ word reading accelerating. The synthetic phonics method as implemented in the study involved, right from the start of school, children learning a small number of letter sounds and using that knowledge right away to sound and blend the letters to find out how to pronounce unfamiliar words. They then rapidly learnt more letter sounds and continued to use the strategy. The study found that these children had much better reading and phonological awareness skills than those taught either by analytic phonics, or by analytic phonics plus phonological awareness.

When signals are lost in aggregation: a comparison of language marks and competencies of first-year university students

A study exploring the correlations between the English marks (home language and first additional language) in the National Senior Certificate and the National Benchmark Test (academic literacy) (NBT AL)) scores for University of the Witwatersrand first-year education students. The study found that the same mark in home language and first additional language does not necessarily reflect the same level of English-language academic competence as measured by the NBT AL test. Many students who have been accepted into the university based on their English first additional language marks may need academic support irrespective of their overall performance in the Senior Certificate. There was insufficient evidence to show that the NBT Al is a better discriminator of competency at this point in time.

Learning from disruptive classroom behaviour in a Grade 2 mathematics lesson

In this article a descriptive ‘account-of’ an unsuccessful mathematics lesson is followed by detailed analysis , which drew on theory and literature and provides an example of a South African teacher-researcher’s self-study on disruptive learner behaviour in her Foundation Phase mathematics class. It shows is useful at the practitioner level, in which it details how increasingly critical layers of pedagogic reflection can be used to transform mathematics teaching, and via this route, to improve access to mathematical learning in a challenging context. At the research and policy levels, the findings question the separation of attention to mathematics and learner behaviour, rather than addressing the two in combination.

Multiplicative reasoning: An intervention’s impact on Foundation Phase learners’ understanding

Report on research undertaken to improve learners’ understanding of and attainment in multiplicative reasoning when solving context-based problems. The research site was a suburban school serving a predominantly historically disadvantaged learner population, and involved teachers and learners from three classes in each of Grades 1–3. A 4-week intervention piloted the use of context-based problems and array images to encourage learners to model (through pictures and diagrams) the problem situations, with the models produced used both to support problem solving and to support understanding of the multiplicative structures of the contexts. The findings of this study demonstrate that young learners can be helped to better understand and improve their attainment in multiplicative reasoning,

The need for relevant initial teacher education for primary mathematics: evidence from the primary teacher education project in South Africa

Report of the work conducted by the Assessment Working Group of PrimTEd to design a common assessment in mathematics for higher education institutions use with their with Bachelor of Education student intakes. The assessment instrument is an online test of 90 minutes, consisting of 50 items on different mathematics concepts pertaining to foundation and intermediate phase school mathematics for teaching. The authors, analysed the performance of the 2017 pilot testing with first year students from two universities, and the 2018 national assessment from seven higher education institutions. The results revelaed similar patterns of performance. As the test was set at the level of mathematics at which the students are expected to teach, it is concerning that the majority of students (71%) were not able to obtain more than 60%. This brings into question the assumptions made about the mathematics skills and competencies that entrants into the B.Ed programme bring with them into tertiary education.

The need for relevant initial teacher education for primary mathematics: evidence from the primary teacher education project in South Africa

Report of the work conducted by the Assessment Working Group of PrimTEd to design a common assessment in mathematics for higher education institutions use with their with Bachelor of Education student intakes. The assessment instrument is an online test of 90 minutes, consisting of 50 items on different mathematics concepts pertaining to foundation and intermediate phase school mathematics for teaching. The authors, analysed the performance of the 2017 pilot testing with first year students from two universities, and the 2018 national assessment from seven higher education institutions. The results revelaed similar patterns of performance. As the test was set at the level of mathematics at which the students are expected to teach, it is concerning that the majority of students (71%) were not able to obtain more than 60%. This brings into question the assumptions made about the mathematics skills and competencies that entrants into the B.Ed programme bring with them into tertiary education.

Hard Words: Why aren't kids being taught to read? Hard Words: Why aren't kids being taught to read?

Popular article from the United States of America that argues that, thought scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught, many educators and teacher educators do not known the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As as a result, millions of children are set up to fail.

UNEVOC TVET Leadership Programme 2019

UNEVOC TVET Leadership Programme is building a growing global network of leaders in TVET. Capacity building for transformational TVET leaders: Vision, knowledge and skills.

Artificial Intelligence in Education Mobile Learning Week 2019

The focus of this year’s MLW event was Artificial Intelligence (AI) and sustainable development. As well as participating in MLW as presenters, JET Education assisted in the production of one of the outcome reports: Artificial Intelligence in Education: Compendium of Promising Initiatives.

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