South Africa

Language/Reading Curriculum in the Fourth Grade

South African education underwent several reforms to address the inequalities of the past. The first curriculum after the 1994 elections was the Nates 2005 curriculum. In September 1997, an initial form of this curriculum was approved as three separate policy documents for the Foundation Phase (Grades R to 3), the Intermediate Phase (Grades 4 to 6), and the Senior Phase (Grades 7 to 9). The curriculum was revised during 2001 and released as the Revised National Curriculum Statement in 2002. However, the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement was devised not as a new curriculum but as an amendment to the National Curriculum Statement. It was implemented in January 2012 with the first cohort being students in the Foundation Phase (Grades R to 3) and Grade 10.

The Intermediate Phase (which includes Grades 4 and 5) has six subjects: home language, first additional language, mathematics, natural science and technology, social sciences, and life skills. The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement has specified instructional time for each of these subjects that the schools should adhere to. Furthermore, the curriculum policy also gives a clear breakdown of the time spent per language skill (i.e., listening and speaking, reading and viewing, writing and presenting, language structures and conventions).⁵ Underlying these skills are thinking and reasoning and language structure and use.

Reading Policy

In a multilingual country like South Africa, the curriculum emphasizes the importance of students reaching high levels of proficiency in at least two languages and being able to communicate in others. The language-specific curriculum (subject statement) follows an additive approach to multilingualism; namely, all students learn a language on a “home language” level (which for most would be their home language) and at least one additional official language, and become competent in their additional language on a second language level, while the home language is maintained and developed.

The language subject area includes all 11 official languages as home languages, first additional languages, and second additional languages (e.g., French, Arabic, or Greek among others used primarily for interpersonal and societal purposes). The policy states that the students’ home languages should be used for learning and teaching whenever possible, particularly in the Foundation Phase when children learn to read and write. The reality, however, is that approximately 80 percent of learners officially change to a language that is not their home language in Grade 4. Although the curriculum expects careful planning when students are required to make the transition from their home language to an additional language for learning and teaching, this may not be experienced as such by the learner. The reading and viewing skill aims for students to be able to read and view for information and enjoyment and to recognize the purpose of each type of text. These particular skills also aim to produce students who are creative and critical thinkers.⁶

In the Foundation Phase, the curriculum reflects the guiding principle that language development involves a gradual process of improving literacy teaching and learning. The curriculum advocates an integrated approach to language and literacy development as it is used across the curriculum, though in Grade 4 onward the language teaching approach is “text-based, communicative and process oriented.”⁷

The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement for Grades R to 3 also emphasizes that all students be enabled to learn to read. The curriculum policy gives schools the autonomy to decide whether they would like to have more or less teaching time for home and first additional languages based on the studentsʼ needs.⁸ Of the seven hours per week allocated to language instruction, 4½ hours is dedicated to phonics, shared reading, and group reading. In this regard, the curriculum recognized that all students must be taught strategies that help them to decode written text and to read with understanding. Students also should learn to interpret pictures and other graphics that will help them make sense of visual and multimedia texts. Furthermore, they should know how to locate and use information, follow a process or argument, summarize, develop their own understanding, and adapt and demonstrate what they learn from their reading. The curriculum also recommends that the classroom be a “print rich” environment.

Exhibit 2 presents an overview of the reading and viewing skills that are specified at Grades R to 3.⁹

Exhibit 2: Reading and Viewing Skills, Grades R to 3

Skills		Grades
Emergent Reading Skills	Recognizing common objects in pictures and arranging pictures to form a story Begins to read high frequency words Book handling skills Reads own name and names of peers	R–1
Shared Reading	Reads enlarged texts Sequences the events of the story Uses visual cues to predict what the story is about Discusses main idea	R–3
Group Reading	Reads aloud from own book Uses phonics and contextual and structural analysis to make meaning Monitors self when reading	1–3
Independent Reading	Reads picture books Reads own writing	R–1
	Reads own and othersʼ writing Reads aloud to a partner Reads independently simple fiction/nonfiction books	2–3

During the Intermediate Phase (Grades 4 to 6), students are expected to further develop their proficiency in reading and viewing a wide range of literary and nonliterary texts, including visual texts. The reading policy envisages students who are able to recognize genre and reflect on the purpose, audience, and context of texts. Through classroom and independent reading, students in this phase learn to become critical and creative thinkers. Students in the Intermediate Phase are assessed in three language areas: Oral Literacy Skills, Language in Context, and Writing. Students need at least an overall score (mark level) of four (50 percent to 59 percent) for home language and of three (40 percent to 49 percent) for first additional language to pass the language subject.

Summary of National Curriculum

In January 2012, the National Curriculum Statement for Grades R to 12 was put in place nationally. A single comprehensive curriculum and assessment policy document was developed for each subject, replacing the subject statements, learning program guidelines, and subject assessment guidelines in Grades R to 12 that had been part of the former outcomes-based curricula.¹⁰ The National Curriculum Statement for Grades R to 12 aims to produce students who are able to do the following: collect, analyze, organize, and critically evaluate information, and communicate effectively using visual, symbolic, and language skills in various modes. Language learning in the Intermediate Phase (Grades 4 to 6), encompasses all the official languages in South Africa as well as non-official languages, which can be offered at different language levels.

In the current curriculum, the first language acquired by students is called the home language. The home language level of proficiency ideally reflects the basic interpersonal communication skills required in social situations, as well as the cognitive skills essential for learning across the curriculum. However, many South African schools do not offer the home languages of some or all of the enrolled students, and can offer only one or two languages representative of the community and/or selected by the parent body. As a result, the curricula for home language and first additional language refer to the proficiency level at which the language is offered—native (home) or acquired (additional) language.

In South Africa, many African children start using their first additional language, English, as the language of learning in Grade 4. This means that they must reach a high level of competence in reading and writing in English by the end of Grade 3. Taking this into consideration, the additional language policy implemented effectively means that all children must be taught an additional language from Grade 1 onward in addition to their home language. For most schools offering instruction in Grades 1 to 3 in an African language, this effectively means that English is implemented from Grade 1 as the additional language.¹¹ For schools where Afrikaans is offered as a home language, in most cases English also is included as the first additional language. In schools where English is offered as a home language in Grades 1 to 3, the additional language will be Afrikaans or an African language, depending on the demographics of the school and the parental choice. At the additional language level, emphasis is placed on the teaching of the listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. This level is intended to provide students with literary, aesthetic, and imaginative competencies that will enable them to recreate, imagine, and empower their understandings of the world in which they live. Listening and speaking receive less emphasis than reading and writing skills from Grade 7 onward.

The current curriculum places the responsibility on teachers to differentiate reading levels and to select reading materials that will effectively support students. Course readers are considered important for reading instruction, while authentic reading material (library books and other real life texts) are thought to develop higher levels of reading (i.e., independent reading). The current curriculum is much more specific in providing teachers with instructional plans that contain the minimum content that should be covered over two week blocks. The implementation of the specified curriculum has received mixed reaction, as it may support less knowledgeable or less experienced teachers, but highly capable and experienced teachers find it constraining and less helpful.

Last, the National Curriculum Statement for Grades R to 12 provides teacher guidelines on the development of a language lesson. It suggests that prereading activities should be used to prepare students for reading. Typical prereading activities include discussions of the text title, predictions about story content, and using key words from the text to engage students before starting to read. The curriculum encourages teachers to interrupt reading sessions by “looking back” at the text in order to verify whether predictions were accurate or to discuss why things did not develop the way in which students predicted. At the same time, further predictions could be made about the story.¹² Teachers are advised to engage students in reflection following reading. Literal questions could be asked, leading to more complex and abstract answers based on inferences made from the text. Students could be asked to retell, dramatize, or critically discuss the text by focusing on values, messages, or cultural or moral issues conveyed in the text. Other activities include comparing the text to other texts they read independently, or identifying differences and similarities between texts.