Early Literacy Development and reading instruction

One of the main Early Literacy Development contributions to reading instruction is an understanding of how learners differ in their pre-school literacy development, and how to understand learners‘ thinking at these different stages. Tracey and Morrow (2006:90) describe three phases of development which can be related to current development phases as follows: reading in the Foundation Phase is bound to be affected by reading experiences at home and in-class reading. During the Intermediate Phase learners start to learn how to use language in abstract ways, and will benefit from activities that help them organise their thoughts related to comprehension and writing (a good reason for introducing reading strategies during this phase), and during the post Intermediate Phase, identified as the ages 11 to adult stage, learners are able to use language in abstract ways and will benefit from advanced reading strategies and metacognitive use of strategies.

Shared Reading, originally introduced in Holdaway‘s Foundations of Literacy as ―shared book experience‖ (Holdaway, 1979:64), has shown its impact on reading instruction in the development of Big Books (high quality children‘s books printed in a greatly enlarged format) for use during shared reading. Paratone and McCormack (2005:50) describe Shared Reading as a ―context for reading and re-reading literature that is engaging and age appropriate‖ which ―allows teachers to help all learners gain access to the same text‖ – a process during which teachers provide ―guided practice in behaviours in which good readers engage before, during and after reading‖. Before reading the teacher introduces the book and can ask for predictions about what the story may entail and build on learners‘ background knowledge related to the content. During reading the teacher may ask learners to predict what they think comes next. During post-reading the teacher could ask questions at various

levels to promote critical thinking and provide follow-up activities for responding to the story.

Other instructional practices associated with Emergent Literacy theory are that of ongoing assessment of learners‘ literacy growth, the use of high-quality children‘s literature as a teaching tool, instructional approaches that promote social interaction between learners and the use of literacy centres in the classroom as an important component of literacy instruction (Tracey & Morrow, 2006:94). An important reading methodology, based on the ongoing assessment of readers and the early detection of problems with reading, is the Reading Recovery Programme. Reading Recovery, as developed by Clay in the 1970s, is an early-intervention literacy programme designed to accelerate the most-at-risk readers and writers from within the regular school population to the average performance level of their peers within a short space of time. Reading Recovery is a one-on-one programme between teacher and pupil which lasts on average 12 – 15 weeks, with the intention that the learner ―develops effective strategies for working on text‖ (Clay, 1993a:15). This programme has been implemented throughout New Zealand and the United States since 1984, and more recently also in Australia, Canada and England. Clearinghouse, a branch of the US Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences released a three- year independent review of the experimental research on Reading Recovery in March 2007 which clearly establishes that Reading Recovery is an effective intervention based on scientific evidence.

Clay (1993a:4) contends that as far as regular, individual testing of learners goes, it is ―not necessary to test every child‖ to determine whether a school system is producing satisfactory results; the use of sample testing is sufficient. Clay states that although standardised tests are a good measure of group behaviour, ―individual observation and testing of learners provides a better measure‖ for indicating how reading instruction should be adjusted for optimal results. She further recommends that testing is done on standard tasks and that a wide range of observations be used to ensure that the teacher‘s beliefs of reading and writing ―do not obscure the observation results‖ (1993a:7). For example, using a word test in isolation would provide a skewed result because it tests only one aspect or reading behaviour. Reading Recovery concentrates mainly on early phase learners and on learners with reading difficulties, whereas this study will concentrate on the effect of direct instruction of reading strategies on learners‘ reading comprehension. In other words,

it is assumed the learners are able to read and do not have any fundamental reading problems.

This concludes the discussion on the perspectives on reading and reading comprehension. The following two sections (2.6 & 2.7) will take a short look at two issues related to reading comprehension instruction in South Africa, namely multilingualism (reading in a second language) and the connection between reading and writing. While this study is not about multilingual education per se, it has been performed in a multilingual environment and consistently refers to issues related to multilingual teaching environments (e.g. 3.5.1). Therefore some discussion about reading in a second language is warranted; it will, however, not be lengthy and serve merely to raise awareness of the how learning/reading in a second language can add to the complexity of teaching.

Similarly, since the importance of the connections between reading and writing were identified in the preceding sections, a short discussion of the link between writing and comprehension will follow. It must, however, be emphasized that the link between reading and writing is a unique and individual field of research. While this study recognises the importance of the link between reading comprehension and writing and incorporates writing in the proposed framework for reading strategy instruction as a natural end result of certain reading strategies, writing instruction is not the main focus of this study.