An exploration of the reading choices of grade 4 learners in a public primary school in KwaZulu-Natal.
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Date
2009
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Abstract
The advent of technology, especially the electronic media, heralded a new era of
communication. Together with this boom came a host of reading challenges that has
affected the learner and learner performance in the classroom. In the PIRLS report
(2006) an emergence of a “non-reading” culture was noted as a result of poor
performance by learners in South Africa.
This research aims to explore the reading choices of grade 4 learners and why they
choose to read what they read. The research was conducted at a public primary school
in the Chatsworth region in KwaZulu Natal. This research used the qualitative case
study approach which is set within the interpretivist paradigm. The main source of data
generation was the semi-structured interviews of five learners and their respective
parents. In addition to this method, two structured observations were conducted:
observations of the reading- for- pleasure lessons and the LRE lessons. To conclude
the data collection, a case scenario, where the learners created their own reading room,
was used. This multi-pronged approach was adopted to fill in the information gaps and
omissions that arose from the interviews.
The analysis of the data indicates the following: girls read more frequently than boys,
newspapers form the bulk of the reading at home, billboards are an interesting addition
to their reading list, girls are intrinsically motivated. Findings show that the electronic
media require higher levels of literacy skills to access the highly- textual society of the
workplace. It becomes imperative that reading be motivated, taught and encouraged.
The definition of literacy by the school and the home should be revisited and reviewed
so that learners are not disadvantaged. Furthermore, the teachers and the librarians will
thus have a greater degree of flexibility in selecting reading materials for the classroom
and the library respectively. It becomes vitally important that we heed the warning of Alvermann (2001, p. 680) who argues that “the possibility that as a culture we are making struggling readers out of some adolescents who for any number of reasons have
turned their backs on a version of literacy called school literacy is a sobering thought”
Description
Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.
Keywords
Primary school students--Books and reading., Reading (Primary)--KwaZulu-Natal., Theses--Education.