South Africa boosts early grade reading with new catalogue
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Dr. Nompumelelo Mohohlwane, director of reading at the Department of Basic Education in South Africa, announced the approval of a new Foundation Phase learning catalogue intended to increase access to reading materials for students.
The catalogue, valued at R1.6bn, faced delays and investigations earlier in the year due to concerns about its procurement process, but has now been authorized with some remaining corrections needed.
Mohohlwane explained the catalogue will guarantee at least 40 shared readers and one individual reader per classroom, a significant improvement over the previous 14-year-old catalogue which did not specify such provisions. The department is also working to improve reading instruction by emphasizing phonics and its proper sequence in African languages. While reading levels are improving, access to books remains a key obstacle, and the new catalogue aims to address this by providing more accessible, relevant reading materials for children.
Recent surveys show that 15% of South African children cannot read a single word by the end of grade 3, and only about a third meet minimum reading benchmarks. Alongside the catalogue, officials are implementing objective reading benchmarks for grades 1 to 3 in all 11 official African languages. A recent survey of nearly 28,000 students revealed a gap between preference for reading in African languages, 55%, and actual practice, 20%.
Tara Polzer Ngwato of Social Impact Insights Africa noted that access to books at home is linked to reading for pleasure, and that schools and libraries are the primary sources of reading material for teenagers. However, funding for libraries remains a challenge.
