Reading and Reading for Enjoyment

This particular question was asked to gauge students’ interest in reading, and how much they actually read39. Associations between quantity of reading (calculated by students’ responses

39 _{Question 16 – Do you read a lot?}

Question 17.1 – How many hours do you spend reading per day (for school or for fun)? Question 17.2 – How many books do you read in a month?

137 to number of books read in a month)40 and pre-intervention academic performance was calculated cautiously as inconsistencies were noted across student responses. This is largely due to the subjective nature of this question.

Class C

With this particular class, 14 out of 31 (45%) students indicated that they read a lot and 17 out of 31 (55%) students indicated that they did not read a lot. This was a subjective response and what constituted a lot to one student might have differed to the next. However, of the 14 students who supposedly did read a lot, only 8 indicated that they read more than 2 hours a day and only 9 of those learners indicated that they read 2 or more books a month. This does not take into account how much material was covered in that time though so could differ between a slow reader and a fast reader. Also, students were not asked what types of books they preferred. An overwhelming number of students indicated that they read to improve their English, improve their knowledge and to de-stress, or relax. A smaller number of students indicated that they struggled with reading as they found it boring. Again, a limiting factor with this question was that I did not ask them to give examples of what literature was chosen to improve their English or gain knowledge.

A large majority of learners (24/31 – 77%) read their school books, as well as newspapers, in English. Only 4 (13%) students indicated that they read their school books in both English and isiXhosa and only 4 (13%) students indicated that they read newspapers in isiXhosa. Students did not mention which isiXhosa newspaper this was, or how they were able to access it. When it comes to reading for fun, 19 (61%) students indicated that they read in English for enjoyment, 3 (10%) students read in isiXhosa for enjoyment and only 4 (13%) read in both English and isiXhosa for enjoyment. I accept that the availability of books that can be read for enjoyment may not be as widely available in isiXhosa and this was evident by a browsing of books in the school library. There were very few books available in isiXhosa. The above description means that less than half the class indicated that they read a lot and a very large majority of the students spend their time engaging with English texts, not isiXhosa

Question 18 – What language do you mostly read the following books in? (school books; reading for fun; newspapers or magazine).

40 _{I accept that this question might have been too vague. It did not ask the quantity of reading for books, internet}

138 texts. However, few of these texts appear to be cognitively demanding or academically abstract in nature.

Interestingly, the average performance on the pre-intervention academic essay for students who do not read a lot was 46% as opposed to the average performance of students who indicated that they do read a lot (44%). Although the difference is marginal, it may indicate that either reading is not having an impact on students overall ‘academic literacy’ development or it could be that the type of reading students are engaging in is not having a positive influence on students ‘academic literacy’ performance. Already mentioned earlier, it could be that the type of texts students are reading are not cognitively demanding and thus not developing more cognitive academic language proficiency. I hazard a guess this may be true as informal discussions with students in class illustrated that students struggled to read the English set novels as comprehension of the texts is a barrier. This could mean that reading done outside of class is “easy” reading. Or, the incongruous results could be due to the subjective nature of this question with individual students differing with respect to what constitutes a lot of reading.

Class B

Only 4 out of 31 (13%) students indicated that they read a lot. Of the students that do read a lot, the hours dedicated to reading range from 1 hour to 5 hours a day resulting in an average of 1 book read a month. The reason given for reading for these 4 students was to “escape from reality”. Conversely, 27 out of 31 (87%) students indicated that they do not read a lot and reasons given for this range from “boring”, “no time”, “prefer TV”, “prefer being outdoors” to “falling asleep when I read”. Of the 27 students who indicated that they do not read a lot, 17 read less than an hour each day. When asked what language reading was done in, 15 students indicated that their school books are Afrikaans and 14 indicated that their books are both Afrikaans and English. When reading for enjoyment, a larger majority of students read in English (12 out of 31 – 39%), as opposed to reading in both English and Afrikaans (8 out of 31 – 26%).

With regards to associations between reading and ‘academic literacy’ performance, of the students that reported that they do read a lot, their average pre-intervention essay score was

139 68% as opposed to the 66% average of students who do not read a lot. If we break down the analysis further, there is a slight increase in students’ scores for students who reportedly read more than two hours per day after school (67%) as opposed to students who reportedly only read between half an hour and one hour (65%). Unlike Class C where reading does not seem to correlate positively with ‘academic literacy’ skills development, in this class reading does appear to correlate positively, suggesting that how much reading learners do after school may provide a slight educational advantage with respect to students developing ‘academic literacy’ skills. The difference in relationship with this class as opposed to Class C might be due to the type of texts read – easy versus more difficult.

Class A

With this particular class, only 8 out of 31 (26%) students indicated that they read a lot. Twenty three (74%) students indicated that they do not read after school. For students who indicated that they do read a lot, the number of hours spent reading in a day ranged from 1 hour to 2 and a half hours, with one student indicating that he read up to 7 hours per day. According to the students, their reading equated to roughly 2-3 books per month. Of the 8 students that indicated that they do read cited as motivation for their reading was: “relaxation, love of learning, general interest, love of the challenge, and reading as an escape from reality”. Conversely, students who indicated that they do not read a lot after school, the following reasons for their lack of motivation to do so was: “too impatient, boring, too much sport after school, no time, struggle to focus, and getting too side tracked”. Although these students indicated that they did not read a lot, they still reported reading on average, 1 hour per day.

When pairing reading and academic performance, the 8 students that did read a lot, had a weighted average for their pre-intervention essay score of 78%. Incidentally, the student that indicated that he read approximately 7 hours per day appeared to consistently have the higher mark in the class. This supports a popular perception of the benefits of reading, namely that it assures good ‘academic literacy’ development, but without further information regarding students parental involvement, academic aptitude, whether they read because they are good at reading and so forth, this is merely speculative. Students that indicated that they did not read a lot, they had an average score (70%) for the pre-intervention essay that was significantly

140 less than that of the students that indicated that they did read. Again, this possibly indicates a positive association between developing ‘academic literacy’ skills and reading. But to be fair, 70% is also not a very low score. Either students’ have profited from the little reading that they have done or in this case, reading is not a determining variable.

5.2.7 Summary

In summarising the above situational context of the three classes, it is clear that there are numerous factors that one could associate either positively or negatively with students’ pre- intervention academic performance. Although the purpose of the questionnaire was merely to describe the sample population, interesting insights have become noticeable. These cannot be discarded as they offer valuable insights into factors that might or might not have confounding effects of students’ ‘academic literacy’ performance. The first of these insights has to do with socioeconomic circumstances and students’ academic performance.

Given that Class C is a no-fee school and is situated within a township, one can infer that its feeder community is a low socioeconomic community. Further, educational attainment of parents and guardians within this community were generally much lower than that of students from Class B and A. Pre-intervention academic performance of students from the township school was on average much lower than that of students from Class B and A. One cannot ignore the impact socioeconomic circumstances have on academic performance. This is well documented in the literature with Cross (2002); Smith (2011) and Spaull (2013) to name a few offering evidence of this negative impact. However, the socioeconomic factor merely acts as a proxy for other variables at play and in the context of this study, this relates to linguistic stimulation. Well educated parents are able to offer a richer form of linguistic stimulation to their children which essentially models ways of interacting with aspects related to formal educational ‘Discourse’. Kapp (2006) in a study of student performance of a Western Cape township school noted that students from homes where parents were better educated assimilated more easily into the ‘Discourse’ of school. This could explain higher academic performance of students from Class B and A despite lower levels of reading. Often the higher academic achievement is attributed to access to English as the medium of instruction and this was clearly evident in the perceptions of students from Class C. However,

141 as Kapp (2006) articulates, although English is seen as the tool for educational mobility by lower socioeconomic communities, the language itself is often not developed enough to serve as a language for educational liberation, alongside poor linguistic stimulation, denying an easy assimilation into the ‘Discourse’ of school.

This brings to light the second important finding of the linguistic biography. Students from Class C reported higher levels of multilingualism than students from Class B and A, who showed evidence of bilingualism. In the case of the multilingual students, one has to question the quality of their mother tongue instruction in early grades of schooling. Given that high amounts of code switching were reported together with an early switch to English as the language of learning and teaching at a Grade 4 level, it can only be assumed that students had not been given sufficient time to start developing cognitive academic language proficiency in their mother tongue before making the switch to English. According to Cummins (1979), a second or third language can only develop alongside the first language and if the first language development is stunted, there are limited “pegs” with which to develop ones second language (Cummins, 1984). One has to question then whether students from Class C have merely developed a basic interpersonal communicative competence in multiple languages only. This would explain levels of frustration with regards to reading comprehension. This is contrary to students from Class B and A who have been immersed in the home language from Grade One and continue with their education in their home language. The above scenario could have a direct impact on the full efficacy of an intervention like RtL. Although there is evidence to show that RtL can act as the gateway to accessing the formal education ‘discourse’, one has doubts as to whether RtL, in a short time frame, can aid impoverished students in their proficiency of English. But this does not mean access to the ‘discourse’ is not possible.

Following on from the above scenario, it would appear that a vicious cycle is at play for students from Class C. Socioeconomic circumstances have clearly impacted negatively on students’ linguistic stimulation, which has negatively affected their ability to easily assimilate into the ‘Discourse’ of education. This results in student frustration with regards to reading (which is exacerbated by poor language proficiency). Students, in their struggles to read for meaning, stop reading, which is a necessary activity for building language proficiency.

142 Again, the above description and analysis is based on the students under investigation and any inference drawn cannot be articulated in a strong causal sense. However, a level of contextual causality cannot be ignored either.