Browsing by Author "Ndengezi, Bonisiwe Cresencia."

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Enacting the literacy recovery curriculum in grade one: an action research study.
(2024) Ndengezi, Bonisiwe Cresencia.; Bertram, Carol Anne.
Grade One is a very important grade for each learner’s development in the education journey. This is a foundational grade that introduces learners to reading and writing and therefore provides the necessary grounding for the upcoming grades. There has been a reading challenge among learners in the school where I am a teacher, which was exacerbated by learning time losses during COVID-19. The Department of Education designed a literacy recovery curriculum as a recovery plan in South Africa for the learning and teaching time lost due to COVID-19. I observed that the Grade 1 learners struggled to recognise letters, build words and had little to no motivation to read during the implementation of the literacy recovery curriculum. The purpose of this action research study was to improve both my teaching practice and learners’ isiXhosa reading skills by systematically reflecting on my enactment of the literacy recovery curriculum in Grade 1. The action research study employed the Reading to Learn (RtL) pedagogy as an intervention strategy in Grade 1. It was situated within a pragmatic paradigm and adopted a mixed methods approach to view the phenomenon under study. There were 100 participants from the two Grade 1 classes in my school: 50 learners in each class, one class being the control class and the other being the experimental class, with myself as both a teacher and a researcher. The experimental class was my Grade 1 class, these learners received the RtL intervention strategy while the control class was the Grade 1B class which was taught by another teacher. They did not receive the RtL intervention strategy. I used three data generation methods, namely observation of my practice using video recordings, reflective journaling, and pre-and post-testing of learners’ reading competencies using the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) tool. A ‘critical friend’ observed my lessons and provided feedback on my practice. The EGRA tests show that the results of the RtL class improved slightly more than the results of the control class on the post-test. However, it cannot be claimed that this was only due to the RtL methodology. My teaching practice changed to support learners’ literacy development in a differentiated way. I created a more supportive and engaging learning environment for my learners and I noticed that the learners in my class gained confidence and more motivation for reading.