Reading challenges

Table 5.1 highlights that the majority of principals (67%, = 0.0412), teachers (64%, ( =

0.0053), and learners (55%, p = 0.0004) agree that reading English is a challenge to learners in Grade 6 of the four Rwandan primary schools. There are various reasons supporting this perception. The findings from the analysis of the questionnaire indicate that 48% of teachers agree that English motivates their pupils’ reading in the classroom (see Appendix A2d). This shows that slightly more than half of the teachers believe that learners are not motivated to read English. The analysis of the focus group interviews reveals the following:

(i) English words are complicated in the way they are written. The spelling is very different from how we read in Kinyarwanda. I don’t know how they are pronounced. I sometimes read for reading only! (US1/Lr4).

(ii) My problem is how words are pronounced in English. If the teacher has not taught us how to read the words, it is difficult to know how they are pronounced (US2/Lr4).

(iii) The pronunciation of words of English is more difficult than Kinyarwanda words, that’s why reading English is difficult for me (RS1/Lr2).

These quotations highlight spelling and pronunciation as some of the key challenges that inhibit the learners’ ability to read. Another important observation is that learners read what

they have memorised since they say that it is difficult to read what the teacher has not taught them. In addition, the lack of vocabulary and grammatical knowledge that has been referred to earlier makes it difficult for learners to make sense of what they read. In Grade 6 SS, the learners’ independent reading for their conceptual knowledge growth is missing. The four schools do not have libraries or any other means of helping learners access books other than those used for the content subjects. There is no Kinyarwanda-English dictionary that would help pupils read on their own and learn new words. The lack of Grade 6 learners’ independent reading prevents them from increasing their vocabulary because, as research found, there is a correlation between reading ability and an increase in vocabulary (Leseman & De Jong, 2011). Drawing on these ideas, the learners’ lack of motivation to read English can be regarded as indicative of insufficient English knowledge, which in turn hinders the learners’ reading skills.

In order to investigate reading challenges through classroom practices, the researcher listened to the learners’ reading of sentences or words from classroom recordings many times. The data from the audio recordings did not reflect many instances in which the teacher asked learners to read a text or a sentence under study, and because of the learners’ shyness in the classroom, only a few extracts were audible. Therefore, the researcher selected words that were audible from the extracts and extended the list with other words that were read by the learners from the blackboard. The researcher used those words to illustrate phonological difficulties due to English proficiency. The following table illustrates the reading challenges as follows:

Table 5.4: A sample of the learners’ reading of English words

IPA reading Learner 1 Learner 2 Learner 3 Learner 4

hill /hɪl/ /hɪl/ /hɪl/ /hɪl/ /hɪl/

environmental /ɪn'vaɪrən'mentəl/ /envɪrɒn'mentɒ/ /envɪrɒn'mentɒl/ /envɪrən'mentɒ/ /ɪnvɪrɒn'mentl/

solid /'sɒlɪd/ /'sɒlɪd/ /'sɒlɪd/ /'sɒlɪd/ /'sɒlɪd/ temperatures /'temprɪtʃəz/ /'temperatʃz/ /'temperaturez/ /'temperæt.../ /'tempɪrɪtʃæz/

land /lænd/ /lænd/ /lænd/ /lænd/ /lænd/

volcano /vɒl'keɪnəʊ/ /vɒl'kænɒ/ /vɒl'kænɒ/ /vɒl'kænɒ/ /vɒl'kænɒ/

civilian /sɪ'vɪliən/ /sɪ'vɪlijæn/ /'sɪvɪlijæn/ /sɪvɪlijæn/ /sɪ'vɪlijæn/ enthroning /ɪn'θrəʊnɪŋ/ /entrɒnɪŋ/ /entrɒnɪŋ/ /ɪn'trɒnɪŋ/ /ɪn'trɒnɪŋ/ custodians /kʌs'təʊdiənz/ /kʌs'tɒdijænz/ /kus'tɒdijænz/ /kus'tɒdijæz/ /kʌs'tɒdijænz/ neighbourhoods /'neɪbəhʊdz/ /'neɪgbʊrhʊdz/ /'negbæhʊdz/ /'nɪgbæhʊdz/ /'neɪgbæhdz/

heights /haɪts/ /heɪts/ /hejts/ /heɪts/ /haɪts/

The phonemic transcriptions illustrated in Table 5.3 are the learners’ readings captured from the audio recorded lessons. They were transcribed phonemically with reference to the IPA reading from the Cambridge English Dictionary, which most teachers were using in the classroom. The aim of transcribing is not to identify the best or worst reader, but to help identify difficulties in reading the English words that might complicate comprehension. The highlighted words are the ones that were read without complication.

The analysis of the words in phonemic transcription shows that it was easy for most learners to read words made of simple syllables, which, in one way or another, would sound like the syllables they are familiar with in their MT (Kinyarwanda). Reading words such as ‘hill’, ‘land’, ‘civilian’, ‘solid’, ‘volcano’, and ‘cabinet’ was easy and enjoyable because the sounds of the vowels and consonants are similar to those they know in Kinyarwanda. It was very complicated and frustrating to read complex, multisyllabic words such as ‘enthroning’, ‘custodians’, ‘environmental’, ‘neighbourhoods’, ‘heights’, and ‘temperatures’ because of the unfamiliar sounds. At the time of teaching such complex words, teachers made learners repeat those words many times in order to help them become used to their pronunciation and reading. Sometimes they were learning incorrect pronunciation depending on whether or not the teacher knew the correct pronunciation of the word.

Interviews with educators reveal that the reading difficulties learners have derive from the language problem of unfamiliarity with English words. As shown in Table 5.3, there are difficulties in pronouncing words, especially problems of pronouncing unfamiliar English sounds such as /θ/, /əʊ/, which do not exist in Kinyarwanda. In the following examples from interviews, the teachers use ‘alphabet’ when referring to phonemes.

(i) The English alphabet is not easy for the children especially when they read SS; the texts in these books are difficult for them (TRS2).

(ii) No problem to read Kinyarwanda! ...they read English words as if they were spelt like Kinyarwanda (TRS1).

These quotations suggest that the reasons for reading difficulties at Grade 6 in SS in the Rwandan schools relate to the insufficient English vocabulary and unfamiliarity with the spelling and pronunciation of English words. Audio-recordings of the lessons illustrate many

instances of drills used to help learners assimilate concepts and English vocabulary in the SS lessons. This is discussed in Chapter Six.

The learners’ difficulties in reading unfamiliar English words are self-evident in this study, and one of the factors contributing to this challenge is the difficulty in understanding and speaking, as discussed in the two previous sections. In his study, Ntakirutimana (2005) assessed the reading proficiency of Rwandan learners in English, French, and Kinyarwanda at primary and secondary schools and found that the learners’ reading proficiency in foreign languages (English and French) was generally very poor while their ability to read in Kinyarwanda was very high. The main reason for this was the linguistic situation in which Kinyarwanda dominates and is easily used by almost all Rwandans who can speak, read, and write it correctly (Niyomugabo, 2008). This finding is consistent with Donald et al. (2006) whose research finding highlights that, if learners cannot speak and understand the language used in teaching and learning, reading becomes difficult and meaningless for them because reading skills improve as the learners develop their language knowledge. It can be noted that Grade 6 learners in the four Rwandan schools experience reading difficulties because of their limited use of English. As research shows, the knowledge of a language and the ability to draw meaning from orthographic words are necessary prerequisites for reading (Hoover & Tunmer, 1993). Thus, the challenges of reading English in Grade 6 can be reduced by the learning of English as a subject before it is used as the MoI.

A comparison of the findings in Table 5.2 shows that there is a difference between the rural and urban schools in terms of reading challenges. The table illustrates that where principals and teachers in rural schools agree that reading is a challenge for learners, their counterparts in urban schools disagree. These results suggest that rural schools have greater reading challenges than urban schools. The explanation of this difference of perception may be attributed to the level of home support for literacy practices. In a study on the home literacy practices among Rwandan families, Ruterana (2011) shows that the poor home literacy environment prevalent in rural settings hinders the development of a reading culture of school children. He found that the availability of resources and activities fostering literacy development differs in rural and urban settings, and this affects the learners’ subsequent development of reading ability. In the present study, regardless of the rural-urban divide, the focus group discussions reveal a lack of parent-child interaction in respect of homework and other literacy practices at home. However, there were statements showing that a few learners

in urban households are engaged in reading newspapers and stories in Kinyarwanda with their siblings. Considering early home literacy practice as a milestone to later reading achievement (Leseman & De Jong, 2011; Ruterana, 2011), reading English in rural schools is more challenging than in urban schools because of the lack of foundations for reading (Hoover & Tanmer, 1993) that start early at home. Therefore, the less exposure that rural schools have to English, the weaker their literacy practices will be.