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Reading and socio-emotional skills in challenging school contexts: Evidence from South African primary schools

具有挑战性的学校环境中的阅读和社会情感技能：来自南非小学的证据

基本信息

批准号：
ES/T007583/1
负责人：
Servaas Van Der Berg
金额：
$ 12.87万
依托单位：
Stellenbosch University
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2020
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2020 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FT007583%2F1
关键词：
Reading socio emotional skills challenging

项目摘要

Learning to read for meaning is the most important skill that children learn in primary school. Yet children in 90% of South African schools are not acquiring this skill by the end of grade 4 (Spaull & Pretorius, 2019). The most recent Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (2016) (PIRLS-Literacy) indicates that almost one in every eight grade 4 students in South Africa cannot read for meaning in any language, despite the curriculum assuming that students can read in both their home language and English by the end of grade 4 (Howie, et al., 2017). Against this context, 'reading for meaning' among young children has recently been identified by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as a top five national priority (South African Government, 2019). In adopting this new priority goal, South Africa needs to significantly advance the local body of knowledge on reading in African languages, identifying why children can't read, how reading could be improved, and how much improvement we could reasonably expect. In this study, we aim to fill some gaps in this body of knowledge. First, we will explore reasons for why children are failing to read with comprehension in African languages and English. Comprehension is what reading is all about - and this is what is measured in nationally representative surveys. However, reading comprehension is just the 'tip of the iceberg' with respect to underlying skills required to read (Spaull, et al., 2018). Necessary but not sufficient skills for comprehension include oral language, vocabulary knowledge, print awareness and decoding components such as phonemic awareness, letter-sound knowledge, word reading and oral reading fluency (Hoover & Gough, 1990). Using new emerging datasets on reading in African languages in South Africa, we will identify to what extent children can master these basics of reading across different languages. We will be able to construct a clearer picture of which of the reading 'building-blocks' children do and don't have, how these differ by language and whether reading skills systematically differ by poverty levels and gender. Fortunately these new datasets testing reading in African languages and English collect assessment data for the same children over time. With this data researchers can explore how reading skills develop and what gains in skills are acquired by initially low achievers, medium achievers and higher achievers. By observing best possible reading gains, it will be possible to get a better idea of the feasibility of attaining the presidential reading goal under current conditions or when conditions for improvement are created in schools. The constraints to learning at the school, teacher and classroom level are well understood in South Africa (see for example van der Berg, et al., 2016; Fiske & Ladd, 2004; Carnoy & Chisholm, 2012) with projects underway to address these constraints. But little is understood about underlying individual factors that may enhance or limit children's proficiencies in reading. Bullying, for example, is a very big concern in primary schools with South Africa recording some of the highest levels of bullying across all countries participating in PIRLS (Howie, et al., 2017). Bullying may reflect low underlying socio-emotional skills among children. Yet, international evidence and preliminary evidence from South Africa suggests that socio-emotional skills may be particularly important in fostering academic performance, including reading comprehension skills (Wills & Hofmeyr, 2018; Durlak, et al., 2011; Zins, et al., 2004). We will use available datasets to explore evidence on socio-emotional skills among primary school children in South Africa and identify whether indicators for socio-emotional skills (such as Duckworth's (2007) concept of 'grit') are linked to learning and reading skills in challenging contexts.

学习阅读是孩子们在小学学习的最重要的技能。然而，南非90%的学校的孩子在四年级结束时还没有掌握这项技能(Spaull&Pretorius，2019)。最新的国际阅读扫盲研究进展(2016)(PIRLS-扫盲)表明，南非几乎每八名四年级学生中就有一人无法阅读任何语言的意义，尽管课程假设学生在四年级结束时可以用本国语言和英语阅读(Howie等人，2017年)。在此背景下，南非总统西里尔·拉马福萨最近将幼儿“阅读理解意义”列为五大国家优先事项(南非政府，2019年)。在采纳这一新的优先目标时，南非需要显著提高当地关于非洲语言阅读的知识体系，找出儿童不能阅读的原因，如何提高阅读能力，以及我们可以合理地期待有多大的进步。在这项研究中，我们的目标是填补这一知识体系中的一些空白。首先，我们将探索为什么孩子们无法理解非洲语言和英语阅读的原因。理解力就是阅读的全部内容--这也是全国代表性调查的衡量标准。然而，就阅读所需的基本技能而言，阅读理解只是冰山一角(Spaull等人，2018年)。必要但不充分的理解技能包括口语、词汇知识、印刷体意识和解码成分，如音素意识、字母-声音知识、单词阅读和口语阅读流利性(Hoover&Gough，1990)。使用新出现的关于南非非洲语言阅读的数据集，我们将确定儿童在多大程度上能够掌握这些跨不同语言的阅读基础。我们将能够构建一幅更清晰的图景，了解儿童有哪些阅读“积木”，这些阅读“积木”在语言上有何不同，阅读技能是否因贫困水平和性别而有系统地不同。幸运的是，这些测试非洲语言和英语阅读的新数据集随着时间的推移收集了相同儿童的评估数据。有了这些数据，研究人员可以探索阅读技能是如何发展的，以及最初的低成就者、中等成就者和高成就者在阅读技能方面获得了什么收获。通过观察可能获得的最佳阅读收益，可以更好地了解在当前条件下或在学校创造改善条件的情况下实现总统阅读目标的可行性。在南非(见van der Berg等人，2016年；Fiske&Lade，2004；Carnoy&Chisholm，2012)，学校、教师和课堂上对学习的限制都得到了很好的理解，目前正在开展项目来解决这些限制。但对于可能提高或限制儿童阅读熟练程度的潜在个人因素，人们知之甚少。例如，欺凌是小学中一个非常令人担忧的问题，南非是参与PIRLS的所有国家中欺凌程度最高的国家之一(Howie等人，2017年)。欺凌行为可能反映了儿童潜在的社会情感技能低下。然而，国际证据和来自南非的初步证据表明，社会情绪技能在培养学习成绩方面可能特别重要，包括阅读理解技能(Wills&Hofmeyr，2018；Durlak等人，2011；Zins等人，2004)。我们将使用现有的数据集来探索南非小学生社交情绪技能的证据，并确定社交情绪技能的指标(如Duckworth(2007)的“坚韧”概念)是否与在具有挑战性的环境中的学习和阅读技能有关。