Background: The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study of 2016 lays claim to the need for critical thinking to be developed since, in the South African context, 78% of learners could not even retrieve explicitly stated information (lower-order thinking) from texts, as opposed to 4% in the rest of the world. Critical, higher-order…

Background: Fluency in mathematical language is essential for learning mathematics. Teachers must understand and use their diverse mathematical knowledge, including language and communication difficulties inherent to mathematics instruction. According to recent South African research, Grade 1 teachers are not equipped to utilise learners'…

Background: English Second Language (ESL) learners have difficulty constructing sentences due to internalising information in their home language and thereafter translating it into English. Learners who have difficulty speaking English generally encounter problems writing it, which hampers their creative writing ability. Objectives: The purpose of…

Background: Making predictions on how events might unfold when reading a text improves comprehension. Research on reading and making predictions tends to focus predominantly on the effects of making predictions as a reading strategy in monolingual contexts. So far, there is a paucity of research on the effects of reading development strategies in…

Background: According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS, 2006 with 87%, 2011 with 82%, 2016 with 78%, 2021 with 81%), an international reading comprehension assessment conducted at the Grade 4 level, South African learners perform very poorly in reading comprehension, even when reading in their African home languages.…

Background: Despite South Africa's huge investment in professional development, there is not a lot of research that shows that teachers change their teaching practices by attending formal interventions. This article focuses on English as First Additional Language (EFAL) and explores how one Grade 2 teacher changed her practice of oral language…

Background: Apart from being a knowledge-gaining commodity, critical literacy is believed to be a practice that exists between people, groups and communities in a sociopolitical and cultural context. It is assumed that without strong literacy skills, post-secondary education and employment options are limited. It is thus against this background…