South African media has been saturated with opinion pieces about the ‘literacy crisis’ in our schools. This comes in the wake of the release of the PIRLS 2021 results where South Africa once again fared poorly. bua-lit has inserted our voice into the debate, especially to offer a counter to the technicist and back-to-basics remedies being touted by others. We have argued that this results in further literacy impoverishment for our children. Instead, we have put forward our ‘rich literacies’ approach again.
Take a listen to 3 interviews we have given this week on radio and TV:
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How about taking an empathetic approach? I am a beginner isiZulu speaker. Because isiZulu is written phonetically, I am able to ‘read’ most isiZulu texts. What I mean is that I can enunciate the words on the page. However, due to my limited vocabulary, I have no access to the ‘meaning’ of these texts. It is about time that we stopped undermining children by testing them for their ability to read in languages they are unfamiliar with. Can we please focus on oral language activities supported by the arts (as suggested by Xoli in the interview with John Maytham)? Let’s promote this in early childhood sites as well as Grade R and Grade one. Focus on Grade 4 reading to fix Grade 4 reading is misguided.
How about taking an empathetic approach? I am a beginner isiZulu speaker. Because isiZulu is written phonetically, I am able to ‘read’ most isiZulu texts. What I mean is that I can enunciate the words on the page. However, due to my limited vocabulary, I have no access to the ‘meaning’ of these texts. It is about time that we stopped undermining children by testing them for their ability to read in languages they are unfamiliar with. Can we please focus on oral language activities supported by the arts (as suggested by Xoli in the interview with John Maytham)? Let’s promote this in early childhood sites as well as Grade R and Grade one. Focus on Grade 4 reading to fix Grade 4 reading is misguided.
Lovely to hear these insightful interviews! Thank you!