Adverse criticism regarding the quantity and quality of children's books in South Africa appear in such respected sources as The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature and The Companion to South African English Literature, the authors of which are of the opinion that South African children are dependent solely upon Eurocentric literature for their reading material. In recent years however, local publishers have attempted to redress this imbalance by offering prizes for unpublished works. These prizes have acted as incentives for aspiring writers, many of whom have had novels published specifically for children in the post-developmental reading stage. This study critically examines some of these prizewinning works of fantasy and contemporary realism, in an effort to gauge their literary worth within the context of accepted criteria for judging children's literature. Accolades from adults are not however a guarantee that the prizewinning books will be received with equal acclaim by the children for whom they are written. For this reason, five children in the post-developmental reading stage were asked to pass their opinions and non-literary judgments on the books. Although the critical evaluation of the indigenous works proves them to be eminently worthy of the prizes which they received on publication, the children did not rate them as highly as certain imported works. The works of fantasy by Marguerite Poland rated poorly in terms of their popularity despite the fact that the children said that in a non-circumscribed context, they choose fantasy in preference to contemporary realism. Within the context of the indigenous literature which they read for this study though, they preferred the works of contemporary realism as they were able to identify with particular aspects of the novels. Indigenous literature for children in the post-developmental reading stage is a comparatively new phenomenon which needs to be nurtured if it is to attain any lasting status. The onus rests upon the teachers of literature and librarians to introduce the literature and make the books more accessible to young readers. Publishers need perhaps to engage the views and opinions of the audience for whom the books are written in an effort to publish books which, without in any way detracting from their literary worth, will deal with subjects favoured by young readers.

M.A. (Information Science) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

D.Ed. / The general preference for English as language of teaching and learning (LoLT) poses a formidable learning barrier to many English Second Language (ESL) learners in South African schools. Addressing this barrier is the responsibility of the whole-school with the support of the Department of Education. In particular, school based support teams (SBST) are tasked with the support of learners who experience reading barriers in an inclusive mainstream school. This thesis concerns the implementation of a whole-school intervention at a primary school in a disadvantaged community in Gauteng, South Africa, where ESL learners experience severe barriers to reading acquisition. The aim was to provide support to the whole-school to address reading barriers in an inclusive environment. Objectives were to identify the elements of whole-school reading; to develop and implement an integrated whole-school reading intervention; to train educators to address learners’ reading barriers; and to provide guidelines to the Inclusion and Special Schools Unit (provincial level), District Based Support Team (DBST) and the school, to address reading barriers in future. A literature study reviewed themes regarding inclusion, support structures and whole-school development. Literature dealing with essential elements of whole-school reading, approaches and strategies provided a theoretical framework for the implementation of whole-school reading. A qualitative study within an interpretive paradigm using practitioner action research was conducted. The research site was a primary school in a disadvantaged area in Gauteng, which had referred ESL learners to the local Inclusion and Special Schools Unit for support. Action research was selected because of its fundamental principle of participant empowerment through participation, collaboration, acquisition of knowledge and social change. Data was gathered from staff and learners and analysed during the phases of the action research process. Data collection included learner and educator questionnaires, discussions, observations, field notes, pre- and post baseline scholastic assessment, focus group interviews and the researcher’s reflections. Findings indicated that SBST’s need support in order to address reading barriers. ESL learners do not receive sufficient exposure to English to develop reading skills. Intermediate phase educators have not been trained to teach learners to read and improve their reading skills. Whole-school reading intervention was thus valuable in providing training and support structures for the school to address reading difficulties.

Research suggests numerous views to account for the influence on practice of teachers’ beliefs. One view states that teachers’ lived experiences shape their beliefs about practice. Another view attributes the influence to school experiences. This research sets out to gain insight into teachers’ beliefs on the role of extensive reading in second language learning. A case study of 9 teachers from 3 schools in Grahamstown, South Africa selected purposefully and conveniently was utilised. The teachers were viewed to be knowledgeable on this matter by virtue of their profession while the 3 schools were selected to represent a private school, a former Model C and former Department of Education and Training (DET) school. Data was mainly collected by means of semi-structured interviews, which utilised in-depth open-ended questions to yield teachers’ past experiences. The findings revealed the following: all the teachers appeared to believe that extensive reading was invaluable and enhanced language skills. However, white and black teachers differed in terms of their early experiences of reading. Whereas for white teachers early experiences with literacy were encountered in the home, for black teachers the school was where they had their first exposure to literacy. In addition formal training in the form of an ACE (Advanced Certificate in Education) seemed to have influenced black teachers’ beliefs about the subject at hand, whereas the role of teacher education/ training was not as significant for white teachers.

This study has four main purposes: 1. To determine whether there is a preference for certain types of stories. 2. To find whether boys prefer one type story and girls another. 3. To determine whether the physical make-up or format of the book has any influence on the selection of books. 4. To find how these interests are related to classroom work.

In this particular study the problem is to find which types of books pupils of the fifth grade of different abilities and of different socio-economic status like to read. This study is also concerned with the comparison of boys and girls in their choice of books and magazines.

Orientador: Lilian Lopes Martin da Silva / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-18T18:26:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tozzi_JulianaBernardes_M.pdf: 5656806 bytes, checksum: 4de8c02fab39196d3bb0bd409bfd4cdd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Resumo: O trabalho focaliza as marcas de editoras e a divulgação dos livros infantis no Brasil contemporâneo. Ocupa-se em traçar um mapeamento sobre os agentes editoriais ativos nesta produção, entre 2007 e 2008, e investigar os ideários e as representações de infância que os catálogos impressos de divulgação destas empresas editoriais, as principais fontes da pesquisa da investigação realizada, colocam em circulação. Para isto, a pesquisa observa e discute as estratégias que as editoras incorporam e/ou inventam para garantir seu reconhecimento e distinção neste campo de comércio de bens simbólicos para a infância e identifica como a leitura dos dispositivos encontrados nos catálogos de divulgação pode informar sobre os imaginários que definem e atualizam infâncias, seus públicos e objetos, e a concorrência de produtos. O trabalho tem sua problematização e procedimento metodológico-analítico fundamentados em contribuições trazidas pela Sociologia da Cultura (com Norbert Elias e Pierre Bourdieu), explorando as noções de campo e da teoria da ação social; pela História Cultural (com Roger Chartier e Robert Darnton) e as ideias de mediação editorial e ciclo de vida dos livros; e pela Teoria da Enunciação (de Mikhail Bakhtin), com sua inspiração para a discussão discursiva dos materiais de linguagem. / Abstract: This paper focus on publishing brands and the dissemination of children's books in contemporary Brazil. It tries to delineate a map of the active publishing agents in the 2007-2008 production and to investigate the ideals and representations of childhood that the printed catalogs of those publishing companies, taken as the main research sources of the investigation, make circulate. To carry this out, we observe and discuss the strategies that the publishing companies incorporate and/or invent in order to warrant its recognition and distinction in the field of commerce of symbolical goods for childhood and identifies how the reading of the mechanisms found in catalogues can inform the ideas that define and actualize childhoods, their audiences and objects, and the competition of products. The works has its problematization and methodological-analytical procedure founded on contributions brought about by the Sociology of Culture (N. Elias and P. Bourdier), exploring the notions of field and the social action theory; by Cultural History (R. Chartier and R. Darnton) and the ideas of editorial mediation and cycle of life of books; and by the Theory of Enunciation (M. Bakhtin) with his inspiration for discourse discussion of language materials. / Mestrado / Educação, Conhecimento, Linguagem e Arte / Mestre em Educação

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