This dissertation describes a microethnographic study of the induction of preschool children into the practices of schooled literacy at an ex-Natal Education Department, Anglican-affiliated preschool. The sources of data are participant observation and audio-recordings of planning time interaction; interviews with key informants; and site documentation. The principal finding of the study is that planning time, a seemingly inconsequential preschool event, differentially inducts children into literacy practices that anticipate expository reporting. Such literacy practices carry high prestige in Western capitalist society, being the recognised convention for presenting and contesting information. Planning time was originally designed as an intervention program to facilitate nonmainstream literacy acquisition by making the conventions explicit, thus minimising cultural and linguistic discontinuities between home and school-based literacy practices. However at Church Preschool, an essentially closed environment with access controlled by mechanisms such as waiting lists, this event has been co-opted to further maximise mainstream advantage. The data reveals that, despite a rhetoric of openness in making the norms explicit, planning time only inducts nonrnainstream children into elementary literacy practices. Beyond that point, the conventions become increasingly implicit and depend on shared knowledge of mainstream norms. Planning time functions as a covert gatekeeping event that effectively maintains the status quo by guarding access to powerful literacy practices. The tension between the rhetoric of openness and the reality of who gains mastery of the literacy practices suggests that planning time restricts access not on the level of entry, but at the point of acquisition. / Thesis (M.A.-Linguistics) - UnIversity of Natal, 1996.

People with vision impairments are under-represented in the workforce, largely due to discrimination. Also, in order to be qualified for most types of employment, people will need to be computer-literate in the future. Therefore, teaching computer literacy is an important part of postsecondary education. Particularly the availability of adaptive computer equipment and improvements in legislation prepare the ground for a computer-literate visually impaired person to achieve equality and become an integral part of the workforce.This thesis addresses the issues involved in teaching computer literacy for visually impaired students. It introduces several examples of computer literacy courses at institutions of post-secondary education, as well as discusses the CS 104 course designed and taught by Dr. Roy L. McCormick for visually impaired students at Ball State University. / Department of Computer Science

The first purpose of the present study was to determine whether the duration of preschool children's drawing and writing activity could be increased by introducing the process of dictation and dramatization of children's own stories. The second purpose of this study was to determine whether taking dictation from preschool children and facilitating the dramatization of children's dictations had an impact on print awareness. Samples of convenience were selected from a child care center in a small midwestern city. Results were based on the participation of 16 3- to 5-year-old children in the intervention group and 21 3- to 5-year-old children in the control group.Each participant's print awareness level was measured at the beginning and end of the study using the Print Awareness Test (Huba & Kontos, 1986). Videorecordings were made of the activity that occurred at a designated writing table. The duration of each child's writing and drawing activity was recorded (in seconds). For three hours a week during the eight weeks of the treatment period, children in the treatment group were encouraged to dictate their own individual stories to an adult who wrote their stories and read the stories back to the children. During the last four weeks of the treatment period, children in the treatment group also were encouraged to dramatize their own stories.The findings of the study were:1. A significant difference in children's print awareness was found in both the treatment and control groups (p<.05). There was no difference in print awareness change scores between the treatment and control groups.2. There was a moderate positive correlation (.471) between the number of stories dictated during the first four weeks of intervention and changes in print awareness scores within the treatment group.3. There was no significant difference between the control and treatment groups in the duration of writing and drawing at the end of the study. However, within the treatment group, during the time children were dictating and dramatizing their own stories, the duration of writing and drawing was significantly greater than either before or after intervention. / Department of Elementary Education

This quantitative study explored the effect of intervention lessons on online reading skills in fifth grade classrooms. First, it sought to examine the relationships among demographic variables including gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status and self-reported Internet use and Internet ability. Second, this study was designed to investigate which variables best predict performance on a measure of online reading. Third, the effect of lessons designed to improve online reading comprehension was explored to determine the efficacy of targeted classroom-based instruction on learned skills. Three theoretical frameworks underpinned this study: 1) a new literacies framework (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004), 2) transactional model (Rosenblatt, 1978), and 3) socioconitive model (Ruddell & Unrau, 2004a). The study was conducted in a Midwestern, suburban school over a 12-week time period with 443 fifth grade students. The repeated measures quasi-experimental research design allowed a quantitative investigation of online reading comprehension instruction to provide a reliable and valid assessment of the impact of online reading comprehension instruction on changes in student performance on an established measure of online reading comprehension. Additional attention to common variables known to influence outcomes in reading and technology performance (e.g., demographic variables, prior reading achievement scores) strengthened the design by allowing a more refined analysis of the isolated impact from the instructional activities. A regression analysis revealed prior achievement on norm-referenced measures of English/Language Arts as well as reported Internet use accounted for a significant amount of variance on online reading comprehension performance. Statistical analyses revealed significant differences between the experimental and control groups in online reading performance growth. Results from the subskill analysis show students in the experimental group demonstrated significant improvement over the control group on two of the three subskills (locating and synthesizing). No significant differences in group growth were observed for the Web evaluation task. Findings from this study indicate teachers varying in experience and Internet familiarity can effectively teach online reading in a classroom setting, and that students who received this instruction developed these skills at a greater rate. This work can inform future efforts as to how to best teach the skills and strategies of online reading. / Department of Educational Psychology

This study investigates how listening, as part of the literacy learning programme is planned for and taught in the grade one class. The data was produced through semi-structured interviews of five participants, who were grade one educators in the urban area of Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal. Findings suggested the many factors that accounted for why some children in the grade one class do not listen and that educators need to plan for the teaching of listening. The researcher examines the use of multiple strategies, such as teaching responsively, including stimulating tasks, reading aloud, creating a purpose for listening, setting the stage for listening and modeling as strategies to teach listening. The study ends with recommendations for the Department of Education to present workshops to educators on the teaching of listening and for module courses at colleges and universities to offer specialized courses on the teaching of listening. The aim of this research which was conducted in the urban area of Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal, was to investigate how grade one educators were planning for and teaching listening. During this study, data was produced through semi-structured interviews of five participants, who were grade one educators. Findings of this study suggest that there were many factors that accounted for why some children in the grade one class do not listen. Findings also indicated that educators need to plan for the teaching of listening. / Ed. (Didactics))

A vulnerable group, learners with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) within the Foundation Phase learner population, has often been neglected with regards to literacy development. These learners in many cases do not get optimal teaching and learning due to an inability of teachers to address the literacy needs adequately within the mainstream classroom context. The purpose of this study was to determine the emergent literacy profile of learners with FASD in a Grade One classroom in a selected rural farming community. This study aimed to understand the socio-economic elements that may contribute to barriers in the families of learners with FASD that contribute to the possible emergent literacy problems. As well as highlight the strengths present in the socio-economic context of these families that can be used to support learners with FASD. Bronfenbrenner’s and Morris (1977; 1992) ecological systems theory provided a framework for understanding the complexity of influences, interactions and interrelationships between an individual and various other systems that are linked to the individual. A mixed methods research design was used in order to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. Multi-method data collection strategies were employed in this study. The multi-method approach involved: baseline assessment, interviews and drawings. An interpretive data analysis style was employed for the qualitative data analyses and the quantitative data analysis was statistical. The results of the quantitative and qualitative data were interpreted together. The findings suggest that the participants showed significant challenges in the areas pertaining to phonemic awareness, print awareness, oral language and reading skills. And according to the mothers’ adverse socio-economic environmental conditions also daze the effects of FASD on the learners emergent literacy profile.

M.Ed. / New vistas for research among educationists are being introduced through the implementation of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS), the second phase of Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) in South Africa that will be put into practice for the Foundation Phase from 2004. This essay seeks to engage at grassroots level with the people who are experiencing the new dispensation in the teaching of Literacy in the Foundation Phase: the educators, the learners and their parents and the district officials. It is a vital part of the change process, and the sustaining of the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS), that the present reforms are encouraged at all centres of learning: to this end educators are being trained during their holidays. The revised curriculum aims are empowering both learners and educators, with a particular emphasis on offering learners the necessary opportunity to equip themselves for life in society once they have finished school. The setting of the study is a school in Gauteng, 90% of whose learners are from the informal settlement of Bekkersdal with its highly congested homes. The overcrowding in the shacks contributes to the difficulty of the learners in the area to master their work, and it is left to educators in the area to bear full responsibility for the education of the learners, for parents in the area are unable to be involved in the process for most of them are illiterate. Individual educators in the school, aware of the sociological factors that impact in a negative manner on the schooling in the area, are expected to “go an extra mile” to empower learners so that they, becoming literate, have the opportunity to construct knowledge by means of knowledge sharing, exploration, asking questions and active participation in the classroom. / Dr. M.C. van Loggerenberg

This thesis reports on a collaborative action research case study with Grade 8 learners in a rural high school in Fort Beaufort District, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The goals of the case study were firstly, to understand best practices for promoting extensive reading using a classroom library, and secondly, to use these insights to put an extensive reading programme in place with a view to improving my practice as a language teacher and to gain better understanding of ways of enhancing my Grade 8 learners’ literacy skills. The following qualitative methods were used to collect data: observation, semi-structured interviews, class discussion, questionnaires, journal reflections and document analysis. Analysis of data involved identification of emerging themes and patterns. The findings suggest that the strategies used in the extensive reading intervention improved my learners’ levels of engagement with reading. Putting these strategies into practice, and reflecting critically on how to refine them helped enrich my own professional insight and development in relation to the implementation of extensive reading programmes. Since action research is usually designed in spirals of action, this research serves as a first spiral and a foundation upon which to build second and subsequent spirals (which do not form part of this research). The study highlighted the fact that certain challenges that emerged (for example, shortage of books at the learners’ level, and a lack of parental cooperation) need to be addressed in a second spiral of intervention. The study further suggested that the implementation of effective extensive reading programmes by teachers in the middle and upper phases of secondary schooling requires further investigation.

Literacy does not develop in a vacuum. Reading is taught and learnt within a social context. The school and teachers are a central part of this context, Pretorius and Machet (2003). The purpose of this study was to investigate the strategies to improve reading in an Eastern Cape community. To realise this aim, I first looked for strategies that are currently used by teachers. Then I focussed on additional strategies that could be of use in improving reading levels. This study observed the practices and accessed perceptions of teachers in two primary schools regarding literacy accomplishments in order to come up with relevant strategies to improve reading levels. My study is a qualitative case study focussed on Foundation and Intermediate Phase literacy. The two schools used in this study have different language policies. The one uses English as the language of learning and teaching and the other school uses isiXhosa. The home language of most of the learners in both schools is isiXhosa. I observed and interviewed teachers to get deeper understanding of the problem in the two schools. The Four Resources Model of Freebody and Luke (1990) proved to be a strategy that could be used to support the development of reading from the early years and on into the high school years. This model was found to articulate well with the official school literacy curriculum. In-school reading strategies could be well supplemented by assisting learners to engage with the four roles of Code Breaker, Text Participant, Text User and Text Analyst. In my investigation I found out that there is a problem in our schools in both home and additional language contexts. There is a great need for both in-school and out-of-school strategies to improve the situation. An Asset Mapping strategy revealed the range of existing and potential strategies available to a particular Eastern Cape community to raise reading levels and thereby improve learning.

M.Ed. (Media Studies) / The twentieth century is characterised by technological development, and even more by electronic development. It is therefore logical that the computer is increasingly used in the labour market and at home. This puts greater pressure on schools to educate and train pupils to attain computer literacy. As it appears that teachers are insufficiently trained to convey these skills, there is a definite need for in-service training regarding computer literacy. The function and task of the media centre teacher are such that he is the most suitable person to present this in-service training. In-service training is non-formal and andragogically grounded. The presentation of in-service training must .therefore be based on specific principles. To be of any value it must be directed at the teacher's professional needs. These needs determine that in-service training may be presented from the macro-, meso- and microlevels. The direct involvement of the media centre teacher in computer literacy occurs at microlevel and it is indicated that In-service training and guidance are related matters. The computer, as an aid and a medium, has qualities which make it useful in education. Although the computer has many advantages as an educational medium, many didactitions object to its being regarded as a super medium. At present there are many limitations which curtail the maximal usage of the computer as an educational medium. The concept of computer literacy is non-static and differs from culture to culture and person to person; consequently a variety of knowledge and skills is needed for computer literacy. An effort has, however, been made to identify the generally valid knowledge and skills. A model of the guidance activity, as a teaching skill, has been applied to computer usage. The given reference framework and guidance activity are followed by guidelines for the media center teacher's androgenic guidance task regarding computer literacy.