READING TO LEARN (RTL) THROUGH STORY BOOKS: MOVING BEYOND PHYSICAL SCHOOL ACCESS TO EPISTEMOLOGICAL ACCESS IN A GRADE R CLASSROOM IN THE EASTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA
Learning to read is a basic skill and right that each child must be endowed with in school. Reading enables active, civic, social and economic participation. This is made possible through reading to learn. However, South Africa is faced with a daunting task to improve literacy development. From the assessments done South African learners are ranked the worst performers compared to worse off countries. Despite all, there is minimal investment in emergent literacy directed towards grade R to develop literacy behaviours. Grade R is the backbone of all the basic literacy skills that are employed in the future grades. It appears access for this cohort is only physical, past the school gate, but not epistemological. It is at the backdrop of the above that this study focused on creating opportunities for and developing Grade R learners' emergent literacy skills. As interventionist pedagogy, RtL within an interpretivist approach was applied to weave through the learning experiences of Grade R learners with story books as learning tools; and explore the extent scaffolding in RtL affects their development of emergent literacy skills. Observations and learner work samples are used as data generation tools. Basing on the emerging post intervention data, I argue that the use of RtL pedagogy develop emergent literacy skills in Grade R learners. Keyword: epistemology, access, Zone of proximal development, scaffolding, Reading to Learn. 1. BACKGROUND TO STUDY Academic achievement hinges on the ability to read. This is a prerequisite skill which all learners should be equipped with to engage with learning content. However, in South Africa learners' incapacitation is twofold, their reading skills are compromised to the extent that a greater percentage can neither read nor read to learn. Hence writing from what they have read becomes almost a challenge. In this regard they are pulled away from academic success. It has proved through national and cross national literacy assessments that South African children, especially from former blacks' only schools, perform two grades below that of their counterparts in other African countries. Against this background the issue of access is interrogated as to whether it is real or it is cosmetic despite education being a constitutional right. It appears it is superficial because a greater number of learners cannot engage meaningfully with the content at their disposal. Consequently, it pushes us to investigate how school success can be ensured from grade R, as the reading and writing skills children need to function at school are acquired long before they reach school going age. Against this backdrop, this study aims at using Reading to Learn (RtL) pedagogy in an English Home language grade R classroom to develop emergent literacy skills in the learners through Action research. 1.2. Literacy challenges countrywide It is stated in the constitution that, all children have a right to a free and quality education (Republic of South Africa, 1996) However, this appears not to be the case because the issue of quality and epistemological access is questionable. To realise this right, several milestones such as policy changes; curriculum changes; and providing fee free education in poor community schools have been reached since the onset of democracy. Despite multiple policy changes, curriculum transformation, free education for the (c) IJARW ISSN (O) 2582 1008 June 2020 Vol. 1 Issue. 12 www.ijarw.com IJARW1278 International Journal of All Research Writings 27 marginalised communities, there are snail steps in literacy development. Results of the 2011 Annual National Assessments (ANA's) for example revealed that learners' mathematics abilities decline steadily as they progress through school (Badat Sayed, 2014) Similarly, out of 50 African countries, South Africa performed the worst on the PIRLS cross country literacy assessments (ibid. It is against this background that literacy challenges experienced in the education system remain obstacles in improving educational quality and epistemological access at schools (Zimmerman and Smit, 2014) 1.3. Literacy challenges specific to grade R According to Cooper. Murray. Tomlinson, Vally, (2015) Grade one learners in South African schools enrol in formal schooling with very few or little emergent literacy skills. Several factors contribute to this demise, including the neglect of explicit early literacy and language development of grade R learners (ibid. In the same vein, Mohangi et.al. (2016) argue that grade R challenges in rural settings contribute to the neglect of explicit literacy development in grade R. Among many, they identified infrastructure and provisioning; pedagogical challenges; and management and support challenges. 1.4. Formal literacy instruction The evolution of formal literacy instruction in the grade R classroom appears to limit the development of emergent literacy skills. Of great significance is the obsession with paper and pencil, rote learning at the expense of play time (Excell Linington, 2011) This is against the dictates of emergent literacy instruction. At grade R emphasis is on oral language, visual perception skills, emergent reading and emergent writing (through modelling and pretence/fantasy) The formal literacy activities imposed carry no meaning for the grade R child (Excell Linington, 2011) The main culprit could be the anxiety on teachers to get learners ready for the grade 1 formal curriculum (DBE, 2011b) Besides, there may be no play resources hence teachers resort to the wrong approach. However, Bloch (2006) argues, when babies learn to talk, there is no anxiety on the part of parents to get them ready to learn oral language because there is the knowledge that they eventually will. Therefore, Bloch (2006) advises that teachers give children the same support, affirmation, and feedback that will help them learn emergent literacy skills without the anxiety of formal learning readiness. It is against this backdrop that RtL is explored as a pedagogic paradigm in the present context, to accelerate emergent literacy skills in a grade R classroom. RtL has been applied with success in Australia where it emanated; in South Africa (Mataka, 2018) (Millin Millin, 2015) Uganda; Kenya (Lucas, McEwan, Ngware Oketch, 2014) Portugal; Spain; Swede; Denmark; Scotland and the Netherlands (Coffin, Acevedo, Lovstedt, 2013) 2.STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The reading crisis in South Africa seems not to be getting any better. It appears there are multiple factors but the key factor seems to be the lack of teaching explicit reading to learners by teachers (Klapwijk, 2012) resulting in non readers. It is at the backdrop of the above argument that teaching of reading explicitly should be extended to the grade R classroom using RtL pedagogy for accelerated development.