A Comparison of the Early Reading Strategies of isiXhosa and Setswana First Language Learners

Autor/in	Probert, Tracy N.
Titel	A Comparison of the Early Reading Strategies of isiXhosa and Setswana First Language Learners
Quelle	In: South African Journal of Childhood Education, 9 (2019) 1, Artikel 643 (12 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Probert, Tracy N.)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2223-7674
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; African Languages; Syllables; Phonemes; Morphemes; Emergent Literacy; Beginning Reading; Reading Strategies; Orthographic Symbols; Metalinguistics; Language Skills; Elementary School Students; Grade 3; Grade 4; Phonological Awareness; Oral Reading; Reading Fluency; Word Recognition; Morphology (Languages); Reading Ability; South Africa + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Africa; Language; Languages; Afrika; Sprachen; Afrikanische Sprache; Silbe; Fonem; Morphem; Frühleseunterricht; Erstleseunterricht; Reading strategy; Leselernstufe; Lesetechnik; Metalanguage; Metasprache; Language skill; Sprachkompetenz; School year 03; 3. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 03; School year 04; 4. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 04; Oral work; Reading; Mündliche Übung; Leseprozess; Lesen; Worterkennung; Morphology; Morphologie; Reading competence; Lesekompetenz; Südafrika; Süd-Afrika; Republik Südafrika; Südafrikanische Republik
Abstract	Background: A large amount of evidence highlights the obvious inequalities in literacy results of South African learners. Despite this, a sound understanding of how learners approach the task of reading in the African languages is lacking. Aim: This article examines the role of the syllable, phoneme and morpheme in reading in transparent, agglutinating languages. The focus is on whether differences in the orthographies of isiXhosa and Setswana influence reading strategies through a comparative study of the interaction between metalinguistic skills and orthography. Setting: Data was collected from Grade 3 first-language and Grade 4 Setswana home language learners attending no fee schools in the Eastern Cape and North West Province respectively. Methods: Learners were tested on four linguistic tasks: an open-ended decomposition task, a phonological awareness task, a morphological awareness task and an oral reading fluency task. These tasks were administered to determine the grain size unit which learners use in connected-text reading. Results: The results indicated that syllables were the dominant grain size in both isiXhosa and Setswana, with the use of morphemes as secondary grains in isiXhosa. These results are reflected in the scores of the metalinguistic tasks. Conclusion: This research contributes to an understanding of how linguistic and orthographic features of African languages need to be taken into consideration in understanding literacy development. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01