launch of the Readathon 2006 campaign, Johannesburg
11 September 2006
âA school reading planâ
Mr CM Gawe, Chairperson, Read Education Trust
Mrs Hugo, National Director, Read Educational Trust
Mr Tom Boardman, CEO of Nedbank
Learners, parents
In January this year the Mail and Guardian published my response to the
grade 6 systemic evaluation results. The Mail and Guardian gave it the headline
âTell No Liesâ (26 January). It was their headline, but it does underline the
point. We face a huge challenge with respect to the reading competence of
learners in our schools. It is a challenge that has several elements that form
the underlining basis for the negative outcomes.
First, there is the matter of language of instruction in our schools and the
inadequate use of mother-tongue based education and poor attention to
understanding of the teaching of second or third languages in South Africa.
Second, there is poor curriculum training for teachers and mixed messages on
the value and place of reading in the curriculum. Third, there is inadequate
infrastructure and resources in the form of books, school libraries and other
resources for learning.
The most recent systemic evaluation report revealed that five in ten
schoolchildren are not achieving the expected learning outcomes in natural
sciences, six in ten are not achieving in the language of learning, and eight
in ten are not achieving in mathematics (âachievingâ means scoring 50% or more
in a grade 6 assessment task).
A clear message arising from the evaluation is that school resources must be
improved and that teachers must be provided with the support necessary in
theory, methodology and other aspects of learning. The inference we drew from
the evaluation was that the education departments working with partners should
intensify efforts at monitoring learning outcomes and teacher evaluation of
learning in schools.
In my Mail and Guardian article I wrote and I quote, âthe richer the
learning environment in schools, the better children will perform in their
assessment tasksâ. Our response has been to begin improving reading resources
in schools.
On 8 May I launched a national primary-school book programme. It began with
three initiatives. We provided 100 fiction books to 5 233 primary schools. We
also provided a set of Africa's 100 best books to 751 Grade 9 classes. And we
made 30 mobile library buses available for use in areas where there are no
community and public libraries. But it is clear that providing books will not
teach our children to read.
We need to teach reading. In line with this year's Readathon theme we need
to excite young people, to convince them that reading changes their lives
positively. On 8 May, when I launched the book programme, I also announced that
I had instructed my department to draw up a national reading strategy. I
anticipated that the strategy would lead to a massive improvement in reading
abilities of our young pupils.
I anticipated that the national reading strategy would lead to a
proliferation of provincial initiatives. And it has. Various provinces have
announced numeracy and literacy strategies and their impact will soon be
evident. I also anticipated that our leading literacy non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) would show us the best method of advancing reading skills
among our children. And that is what READ has done this year with a newly
designed Readathon campaign for 2006.
This year's campaign will be unlike campaigns in the past. There will be a
writing competition as in past years. But prizes will be awarded to schools and
not to pupils. That is the key difference this year. The focus this year will
be on improving reading in schools as a whole. Each school will be required to
enter the competition as a school. Each school will receive assistance from
various literacy organisations that will help them win the competition. Each
school will then be judged on its annual reading promotion plan. And nine
schools will be crowned Readathon schools of the year, each one representing
province. The theme for the 2006 Readathon Campaign is âWhen you can read, you
can write your life storyâ.
Last year's campaign ("reading changes lives") was focused on community
building. It encouraged parents to read to their children; it aimed to build
reading communities. But this year the campaign is focused on schools. We want
to encourage reading in schools, as an activity that needs to be promoted by
principals and teachers. I know from the visits I make to schools and the
meetings I have with teachers and principals that some schools are successful
in helping struggling readers overcome their difficulties and in giving them
the confidence to read well and fluently. I also know that other schools that
are similar and which face similar difficulties, are not successful.
So what is the difference? The difference lies in the abilities of the
adults who teach children to read. Too many adults, teaching children to read,
simply do not know how to do so. I believe that is vitally important that
teachers teach reading in the most effective way possible. There are different
ways of teaching reading and there are fierce battles fought over the best
method to do so. Schools â and by that I mean the entire school - need to
reflect upon ways to motivate children to read. Because once you have the
motivation to read then reading for study follows.
I will not preach to you on the virtues of phonics. But it certainly seems
that recent reports from different countries around the world approve of this
method.
Where schools are successful, with all pupils making good progress in
learning to read, there is frequently a combination of factors at work. It is
not good enough for head teachers to leave decisions on how to teach reading to
individual teachers. What is required is a whole school commitment to ensure
that all pupils can read.
Principals need to be concerned about what their learners have available to
read. This is particularly the case where there is no school library and where
class libraries are limited to only a few classes. Principals need to make a
plan, a reading plan. Whatever it is, they need to make a plan that suits the
needs of their teachers, their pupils and their schools. There is no sense in
not learning to read. There is no sense in leaving things as they are. There is
no sense in not teaching children how to read properly.
A clear message needs to be communicated to all school leaders, districts
and teachers to indicate our expectation of learning outcomes in schools.
Reading, writing and numeracy must be daily activities in every classroom. Once
learners and schools know what we expect, they will read, write and do maths.
They will want to write things that they do not find in their textbooks. They
will write in complete sentences and not in point form. They will be able to
write their own stories.
The Department needs to ensure it provides support, resources and
unambiguous messages about our expectations. It is clear from every piece of
evaluation and research that South Africa needs to treat the poor literacy and
numeracy levels as points of crisis in our education system. Not addressing
these poor learning outcomes dooms our children to inadequacy and mediocrity.
Teachers must also support this drive to read and intensify their efforts at
teaching literacy skills. The challenge is so important that perhaps we should
ask every NGO working on school development to stop their programmes and assist
our schools to teach children to read.
In closing, good luck to all schools that enter the competition. I urge
teachers and principals to raise their expectations of reading standards in
their schools.
Issued by: Department of Education
11 August 2006
Source: Department of Education (http://www.education.gov.za)
