Abstract
South African fourth grade pupils have continually achieved the lowest reading literacy results out of 50 participating countries in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) cycles. PIRLS assesses reading literacy in 11 official languages and benchmarks against international standards. Data were collected through analysis of the PIRLS reports. Findings show that in the 2006 and 2011 cycles, 58% of grade 4 pupils were unable to read for meaning. This increased to 78% in the 2016 cycle and to a staggering 81% in the 2021 cycle. Only 19% of fourth graders were able to recognise, locate and reproduce information explicitly stated in texts and make straightforward inferences. Pupils should have ‘learned to read’ by the end of third grade and acquired these basic reading skills that would enable them to ‘read to learn’ across school subjects. Yet these results imply that fourth graders are unable to ‘read to learn.’ The literacy crisis was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which interrupted conventional schooling with nationwide closures. We show that in 2023 pupils were lagging a full year behind the same-age pupils of 2019. Previously existing inequalities were aggravated as well-resourced, technologically advanced schools switched to online remote learning, whereas pupils in under-resourced schools simply stayed at home without continuing any education. The pandemic after-effects were detrimental to the least proficient readers which could have dire long-lasting consequences. We make recommendations for critical national policy and school practice improvements regarding timely, targeted literacy interventions to combat this literacy crisis.
Presenters
Jean FourieSenior Lecturer, Educational Psychology, University of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Reading literacy, PIRLS reports, Covid-19 pandemic, South African primary schools
