{"id":258582,"date":"2023-04-28T05:33:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T03:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/makhanda-literacy-project-shows-dramatic-results\/"},"modified":"2023-04-28T05:33:31","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T03:33:31","slug":"makhanda-literacy-project-shows-dramatic-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/makhanda-literacy-project-shows-dramatic-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Makhanda literacy project shows dramatic results"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Lucas%20Nowicki\/literacybook-lucasnowicki-20230426dsc_0168.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/makhanda-literacy-project-shows-dramatic-results.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">The \u201cWhistle Stop School\u201d is helping children learn to read and beat the depressing national averages. Photos: Lucas Nowicki<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A partnership between an education organisation and a primary school in Makhanda, Eastern Cape, is showing dramatic results teaching children to read.<\/li>\n<li>The \u201cWhistle Stop School\u201d run by community organisation GADRA pulls learners out of class in St Mary\u2019s Primary School for 45 minutes a day.<\/li>\n<li>They are taught in small groups and with access to a wide range of books and learning materials.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe results speak for themselves,\u201d said school principal Gerard Jacobs.<\/li>\n<li>Now GADRA has developed open source materials for teachers and hopes that the project can spread to other schools.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just 45 minutes a day in a \u201cWhistle Stop School\u201d is helping primary school learners in Makhanda beat South Africa\u2019s alarming literacy statistics.<\/p>\n<p>The Whistle Stop School (WSS) is an early grade literacy and research programme launched by Makhanda community organisation GADRA Education in partnership with St Mary\u2019s Primary School in 2017. About 12 learners in grades 2 to 4 are pulled out of class for 45 minutes daily for sessions with specialised teachers. The sessions take place in St Mary\u2019s Development and Care Centre, right next to the primary school.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/makhanda-literacy-project-shows-dramatic-results.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>A recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/literacy-crisis-in-south-africa-says-new-report\/\">report<\/a> by the 2030 Reading Panel found that South Africa\u2019s literacy crisis is deepening; 82% of Grade 4 learners can\u2019t read for meaning, up from 78% in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>The National Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) stops explicitly teaching reading after grade 3, said Kelly Long, GADRA\u2019s research and communications manager, \u201cso if children don\u2019t know how to read well by the time they get to grade 4 they are going to struggle to catch up.\u201d As a result, many learners are pushed through the system without grasping the necessary foundational skills, said Long.<\/p>\n<p>The WSS programme uses phonics (matching sounds in English with letters or groups of letters), guided reading, and a library to improve the learners\u2019 grasp of reading. Two teachers run the daily WSS classes. \u201cEach sound has its own presentation, which is designed to engage different learning styles. It\u2019s got songs, dance and videos, as well as pictures and things to read,\u201d said Long.<\/p>\n<p>The learners also have access to a well stocked library where they can take out books at their level of reading, and there are weekly guided reading sessions with the WSS teachers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach week the kids get so excited about the classroom library, it has been incredible to see. We were told we were going to lose books. But in the seven years of running Whistle Stop every week during term, we have lost a total of 19 books,\u201d said Long.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Lucas%20Nowicki\/literacychild-lucasnowicki-20230426_dsc_0132.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/makhanda-literacy-project-shows-dramatic-results-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">The learners in the project have access to a wide range of books.<\/p>\n<p>One of the biggest problems teaching reading in schools such as St Mary\u2019s is the pressure to cover the curriculum, said the school\u2019s principal Gerard Jacobs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe challenge of a class of 36 learners is that remedial education is not possible. The pressures of curriculum coverage are so much on a teacher. CAPS says you have to cover ABCD by the end of week four, but only around half the class is able to keep up with that \u2018normal pace\u2019,\u2019\u2019 said Jacobs, who is also a teacher at the school.<\/p>\n<p>This results in many learners falling behind but still getting pushed through the primary schooling system. By the time many of these learners reach high school \u201cthey haven\u2019t mastered the necessary skills to cope,\u201d and end up dropping out, said Jacobs.<\/p>\n<p>The WSS system is quite different. Teachers work closely with small groups of learners, and \u201cwe work on the level of the learners\u2019 needs, there is nothing dictated to us,\u201d said Demi Edwards, one of the WSS teachers. And the wide range of reading material enables teachers to work with each child at his or her own level, said Ntsika Kitsili, another teacher. Kitsili said that the one-on-one attention and instant responses from teachers have helped many of the children become more confident, even if they are not always right.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Lucas%20Nowicki\/literacyteach-lucasnowicki-20230426.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/makhanda-literacy-project-shows-dramatic-results-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Ntsika Kitsili teaches a group of learners in the project.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, the first year of WSS, the 48 grade 3 learners in the project started with a very low reading fluency &#8211; at the level of an early Grade 1 learner. This was in line with data from national research, which indicates that most foundation phase learners are reading two years behind their expected level.<\/p>\n<p>After only one year of participation in the project, the grade 3 learners could read and understand nearly double the number of words per minute than before, and were at the expected fluency level of grade 3.<\/p>\n<p>Five years after partnering with St Mary\u2019s, more than 75% of each grade 4 class can read for meaning, well above the 20% average in this year\u2019s 2030 Reading Report. This is in spite of the fact that only 40% of the St Mary\u2019s grade 1 class can identify the alphabet, in line with the national average.<\/p>\n<p>WSS has now developed a programme for teachers of grades R and 1, which is being piloted in St Mary\u2019s and in another no-fees primary school in Makhanda. The programme and materials are open source and free to use &#8211; the only cost is a mini projector &#8211; and WSS hopes it will help other schools improve literacy levels.<\/p>\n<p>Jacobs said the impact of the WSS partnership with St Mary\u2019s \u201cwas seen immediately\u201d in the outcomes of reading tests. Some learners are now reading well beyond the expected level.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe results speak for themselves,\u201d Jacobs told GroundUp.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/makhanda-literacy-project-shows-dramatic-results.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u201cWhistle Stop School\u201d is helping children learn to read and beat the depressing national averages. Photos: Lucas Nowicki A partnership between an education organisation and a primary school in Makhanda, Eastern Cape, is showing dramatic results teaching children to read. The \u201cWhistle Stop School\u201d run by community organisation GADRA pulls learners out of class [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":258583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928,3247],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-258582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"category-news","9":"tag-groundup","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/makhanda-literacy-project-shows-dramatic-results.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}