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HiWay Reading and Spelling Programme
DK, MT, Qcumber and the HiWay© Reading and Spelling Programme. Empowering teachers to teach reading in an OBE education system.
Dr M.D. Hailstones and Mrs M. M. A. Hailstones
Literacy in the new South Africa.
There is an urgent need for literacy intervention programs within the context of the new South Africa. Furthermore, poor reading behaviour is highly correlated with diverse forms of dysfunctional, destructive behaviour, while efficient reading behaviour is often correlated with constructive behaviour. The potential benefits to the individual, the community and society at large are considerable (McCormick and Hickson, 1996).
The situation in this country is confounded by the persistently high incidence of illiteracy that has hardly been addressed at all within the context of the new political dispensation. In fact reports from a number of diverse sources would seem to indicate that literacy is on the decline in the new South Africa (Machet, 2002).
Machet (2002) points out that literacy entails far more than the mechanical skills of reading and writing. Literacy derives from interactions with the family or significant others in the socialisation process which in turn is embedded within a larger social context. Prinsloo and Stein (2004) concur here, emphasising that children themselves bring meaning to literary events within their social context and actively make sense of their worlds. Literacy is a complex multi-layered and highly skilled process, which involves contextually bound linguistic understanding, reflective thinking and strategic cognitive process for assigning meaning and interpreting the linguistic situation (Clay, 1972, 1975; Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982; Goodman, 1986). Literacy is culturally bound and for this reason it is imperative that we view the problem from a broader social perspective rather than narrowly conceived as a perceptual, associative and individualised activity centred on sound/symbol relationships (Machet, 2002, Prinsloo and Stein, 2004)
In a distinctly post-modern approach to the problem Prinsloo and Stein (2004) and the CELL Project adopt a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach, simply documenting various ‘portraits’ of literary contexts, but being unable to provide concrete intervention. Although claiming not to be “high-handed” in their approach, they high-handedly dismiss the large body of scientific evidence which is directly relevant to our immediate and urgent needs, and attempt to discredit a well researched approach to intervention, namely fostering basic literacy skills such as reading, writing and spelling. We feel that they are clearly wrong-headed here, although we do agree with the sociological perspective on the problem. It is precisely the insight of the Vygotskian approach that would lead us to predict that literacy is a specific cultural tool mediated within a specific cultural context. Even Prinsloo and Stein (2004) depart from their post-modernistic presuppositions by raising the question of which kind of literacy pedagogies are most effective. Within the context of pure post-modernism, such a question would not arise, as all pedagogies are equally right or true (Vieth, 1994). One would need to critique the sub-text here, i.e., look critically at the underlying assumptions and presuppositions that inform our interventions (or non-interventions). We do not want to lose sight of the individual, but precisely to empower the individual and emancipate the child from the post-modern or other cultural narratives that keep them bound within their ‘linguisticality’, their “prison house of language” (Vieth, 1994).
Reading Intervention.
Machet (2002) reports that 34% of adults (7.4 million individuals) are functionally illiterate in this country (ERA Initiative 1999:34). She states that reading behaviour amongst the majority of South Africans is clearly poorly developed. In contrast to popular perception, reading is a complex skill mastered by only a few adults even in literate societies. Reading is not innate, as is language (Lerner, 2000), and the mastery of the skill is achieved by only a few. Learning to read constitutes a major challenge and significant accomplishment on the part of the child. Nearly 80 percent of children with learning disability have a reading related problem (Lerner, 2000). Poor reading ability is also highly correlated with social and personality dysfunction, including school dropout rate and juvenile delinquency (Lerner, 2000; Richek, et al., 1989).
In our technological society, a high level of reading comprehension ability is an absolute requirement. The individual who cannot read well is going to be at a disadvantage. Despite this there is a clear global trend of declining reading proficiency. The causes are complex and consensus is far from being reached as to what factors are most salient in the problems. A victim mentality prevails in most cases, with most authors blaming environmental or social inequality or imbalance. Few authors consider the pervasive effects of culture, and the role of beliefs, values and goals in the individuals constructed worlds of meaning (Vernon, 1969).
Learning to read.
We have already made the distinction between learning to speak a language and learning to read (and write) a language. The neurological and cognitive basis of these skills are divergent and non-equivalent, often occurring in quite different areas of the brain (Lerner, 2000, Jansen, 1996).
The debate around the teaching of reading at present revolves around just two main approaches, what is called “whole language approaches, and explicit code-emphasis instruction or systematic phonics (National Reading panel Report, 2000; Lerner, 2000). Of the two, the first seems to enjoy most support in this country, despite the large body of evidence in support of the decoding approach. The basic characteristics of the whole language approach as summarised by Goodman (1986, 1989) are as follows. Whole language instruction it is claimed
q Emphasises the meaning - and not the code – in authentic speech and literary events
q Encourages learners to take risks and to use language for their own purposes
q Advocates a flexible, varied approach to language teaching.
q Encourages respect for language, for the learner and for the teacher
There are four basic tenets of the approach in the view of Lerner (2000).
q Reading is part of the integrated language system of the child, closely linked to other forms of communication and the communication context. Whole language advocates emphasise active experience of authentic language tasks, and the early exposure of the child to books and other forms of communication. They also emphasise the importance of modelling reading behaviour and aim to foster enjoyment of reading. We have already indicated above that we are in broad agreement with this position. However, we need to be cautious about the claims that whole language will benefit all children. Those who struggle to read or have a reading disability are likely to be disadvantaged by the method. It also does not foster phonemic, grammatical and syntactical awareness, which has been shown to be highly correlated with reading proficiency (Lerner, 2000).
q Both spoken and written language is acquired naturally. We are of the opinion that the weight of evidence is against such a view. A large and increasing body of research clearly indicates that many children benefit form direct instruction in reading and the teaching of rules based strategies for “breaking the code” (Lerner, 2000).
q The use of authentic literature provides abundant opportunities for expressive literacy. Whole language advocates claim that children from early on need to be engaged with and exposed to a wide variety of books and literature. There seems to be little argument here. The large repertoire of nursery rhymes, poems, children’s stories and children’s songs is clearly a integral part of early childhood development (Lerner, 2000).
q The teaching of language as units of sounds and sign combinations, and the use of phonetic grammatical rules interferes with the natural development of language and reading behaviour by fragmenting the whole process in the child’s mind and divorcing it from meaning rich literary contexts, making the assigning of meaning very difficult if not impossible. We feel that there is little empirical support for such a view. In fact we could argue that the logical structure of the sign-sound code system is intrinsic to the mastery of the ability to read, and that helping children understand the code makes complete sense. The increasing consensus on the importance of fostering phonemic awareness and providing code breaking strategies in helping beginner and reading disabled individuals to read clearly argues in support of this (Lerner, 2000; Torgesen et al., 1994). Lerner (2000) goes as far as to say that the question is no longer whether the use of phonics and other code breaking tools should be taught, but what is the best way of teaching them.
The approach advocated by Lerner (2000) and by Rickek et al. (1989) is an integration of the two approaches in a way that capitalises on the strengths of both. This is the approach adopted in HiWay© Reading and Spelling Programme.
Two underlying elements can be distinguished in early reading. Word recognition and word analysis or word attack skills (spelling). Word recognition is the primary skill in the early reader. Words are recognised as a whole, sometimes referred to as logographic reading (Lerner, 2000). This process is automatic and fluid in the developing child. Later, the child comes to rely more on word analysis and word attack strategies, and at this point, direct instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics is clearly beneficial to the child. This stage is termed the alphabetic stage (Lerner, 2000). Finally the child moves into a third stage where whole words, morphemes and print patterns become increasingly clear, and reading becomes more fluent and efficient and less effort is devoted to mechanical aspects of reading. This is termed the orthographic stage (Lerner, 2000). These two skills seem to remain the two fundamental skills in reading, even in expert readers (Woolfolk, 2001). Despite the intuitive view, context provides very little cue for the determination of word meaning, and even expert readers can only determine the meaning of one out of four words from context (Woolfolk, 2001). Expert readers rely primarily of the highly automatic skill of word recognition or the lexical pathway (i.e. a very large sight vocabulary) and secondarily on word analysis strategies.
Children who are unresponsive to early literary intervention.
In a review article entitled Characteristics of Children who are Unresponsive to Early Intervention, Al Otaiba and Fuchs (2002) evaluated 23 studies of early literary intervention in order to ascertain the characteristics of children who do not benefit from the intervention programs. I wish to examine this review article more closely as it is from the same need base, i.e. providing an alternative intervention for children who do not benefit from regular intervention programmes, that the HiWay© programme evolved.
Al Otaiba and Fuchs (2002) state that research suggests that most reading difficulties are associated firstly with core deficits in phonological processing, and secondly with naming-speed deficits. We already discussed these two basic processes as code breaking processes and word identification or word recognition processes, two core factors underlying early reading development (Lerner, 2000). They also point out that deficits in one or both of these areas leads to reading dysfunction which in turn impacts reading comprehension.
They cite Juel (1988) as claiming that children in first grade who read poorly were still reading poorly in fourth grade, which argues against retention and a ‘wait and see’ attitude (Shepard and Smith, 1989). They also cite Stanovich (1986) as reporting a widening gap between poor and good readers over the elementary years. In the light of this, delaying school entry is likely to do much more harm than good and the proposed labelling of learners as “in progress” needs to be critically evaluated. Furthermore, holding other learners back while we wait for the rest to catch up makes little sense (Woolfolk, 2001). Children are not likely to catch up with time, but rather fall further and further behind, while remediating reading problems becomes increasing challenging after third grade (or age eight) (Fletcher and Foorman, 1994). Al Otaiba and Fuchs emphasise the well documented finding that reading dysfunction persists throughout schooling and into adulthood, while the observation that children who begin schooling as efficient readers are likely to experience academic success, graduate from high school, successfully complete college and find employment is equally well documented. Al Otaiba and Fuchs (2002) are of the opinion, and we concur here, that early literary intervention is not optional, but crucial, all the more so in the new South Africa with the enormous backlog and cultural challenges to addressing the need in this country.
It is precisely at this point that Al Otaiba and Fuchs make a most crucial observation. Not all children benefit from early literary intervention. Furthermore, in our experience at least, it is precisely the children that need it most that seem to benefit the least. As we have already indicated, it was for this reason that the HiWay© Programme was developed.
The results of the review by Al Otaiba and Fuchs (2002) are important for this study, as they confirm our experience and findings. In 16 out of 21 reports the authors indicated that poor phonological awareness most clearly characterised unresponsive students. In 6 out of nine studies measuring phonological encoding, authors reported that unresponsive students had difficulty encoding, storing and organising phonological information. In six out of seven studies investigating the affects of naming speed, the authors reported that students who did not benefit from the intervention were distinguished by slow naming speed.
Al Otaiba and Fuchs (2002) also reported that children with ‘hard’ disabilities such a low IQ, low verbal intelligence and disability status, also performed poorly under intervention treatment. Similarly, children with LD such as attention deficits, sign/sound confusion (orthographic and spelling) and/ or behavioural problems also showed reduced ability to benefit from intervention, although results were mixed. Finally, only five studies investigated demographic factors, with only two of the five reporting a correlation between demographic factors and inability to benefit from intervention (Al Otaiba and Fuchs, 2002).
Al Otaiba and Fuchs (2002) state that their review of the literature indicates that it might be difficult or even impossible to characterise a typical non-responsive student due to their complex profile of strengths and weaknesses. They also cite this fact as a rationale for developing “complex, multifaceted interventions that in principle provide something for every struggling reader.” This is a primary objective of the HiWay© Programme.