Assessing the impact of provision of books on reading, teaching and learning behaviour in twenty disadvantaged primary schools in South Africa

摘要

We found positive change in all but five of the participating schools, but were unable to extract reasons for the inertia: why books were still not unpacked, why they could not be traced in the library where they were claimed to be, and why the borrowing of books was still prohibited. Teachers' refusal to allow pupils to look at or borrow books is not a rare phenomenon in South African schools where many researchers have reported that book donations and school workbooks provided by departments of education remain in their cartons, stored in the principal's office, or relegated to a storeroom (Zinn 2011). There was, however, much evidence that there is increased reading in the majority (15) of the schools where reading is encouraged through a variety of activities, and there is some progress in adopting the view of reading as an enjoyable and discretionary activity. We attribute the positive changes to the training that accompanied the donation. This is an important lesson for those involved in policy and planning for the improvement of literacy skills in our primary schools - that you cannot expect the teachers to work confidently with materials at their disposal without providing specialised training in and benign monitoring of the use of the books.