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

学习阅读的意义是孩子们在小学学习的最重要的技能。然而，到四年级结束时，90%的南非学校的孩子都没有掌握这项技能（Spaull & Pretorius, 2019）。最新的国际阅读素养研究进展（2016）（PIRLS-Literacy）表明，尽管课程假设学生在四年级结束时可以用母语和英语阅读，但南非几乎每八个四年级学生中就有一个无法阅读任何语言的意思（Howie等人，2017）。在此背景下，南非总统西里尔·拉马福萨（Cyril Ramaphosa）最近将幼儿“为意义而阅读”确定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，南非需要大力推进当地关于非洲语言阅读的知识体系，确定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望提高多少。在这项研究中，我们的目标是填补这一知识体系的一些空白。首先，我们将探讨儿童无法理解非洲语言和英语阅读的原因。理解是阅读的全部——这是在全国代表性调查中衡量的。然而，阅读理解只是阅读所需基本技能的“冰山一角”（Spaull, et al., 2018）。理解的必要但不充分的技能包括口语、词汇知识、印刷意识和解码成分，如音位意识、字母发音知识、单词阅读和口语阅读流畅性（Hoover & Gough, 1990）。利用南非新兴的非洲语言阅读数据集，我们将确定儿童在多大程度上能够掌握跨语言阅读的这些基础知识。我们将能够更清晰地描绘出儿童具备和不具备哪些阅读“基础”，这些基础如何因语言而异，以及阅读技能是否因贫困程度和性别而系统性地存在差异。幸运的是，这些测试非洲语言和英语阅读能力的新数据集收集了同一孩子在一段时间内的评估数据。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哪些进步。通过观察最佳阅读效果，可以更好地了解在目前的条件下或在学校创造改善条件时实现总统阅读目标的可行性。南非很好地理解了学校、教师和课堂层面的学习限制（例如van der Berg等人，2016年；Fiske & Ladd， 2004年；Carnoy & Chisholm， 2012年），并正在进行解决这些限制的项目。但是，对于可能提高或限制儿童阅读能力的潜在个人因素，人们知之甚少。例如，在小学中，欺凌是一个非常大的问题，南非在所有参与PIRLS的国家中，欺凌程度最高（Howie等，2017）。欺凌可能反映了儿童潜在的社会情感技能较低。然而，国际证据和来自南非的初步证据表明，社会情感技能可能对培养学习成绩尤其重要，包括阅读理解技能（Wills & Hofmeyr, 2018; Durlak, et al., 2011; Zins, et al., 2004）。我们将使用现有的数据集来探索南非小学生社会情感技能的证据，并确定社会情感技能的指标（如Duckworth（2007）的“毅力”概念）是否与具有挑战性的环境中的学习和阅读技能有关。

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.