NATIONALANNUAL LITERACY CONFERENCE

THE 2ND NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LITERACY 12TH-13TH MARCH

2014, SYLIVER SPRING KAMPALA

THEME:

‘’Paving the way for Literacy through Quality Learning

In Uganda’’ TOPIC: ‘’EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT APPROACHES TO TEACHING

LITERACY IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN UGANDA’’

PRESENTED BY

MBOGO KENNETH, KYAMBOGO UNIVERSITY    

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The following NGOs deserve great thanks and appreciation as far as promoting and implementing Literacy of both Local Languages and English is concerned:

RAU-The Reading Association of Uganda LABE-Literacy & Adult Basic Education NABOTU-National Book Trust of Uganda SIL-Summer Institute of Linguistics in Uganda IBBY-International Board of Books for Young People MLEN-Multi Lingual Education Network? Mango Tree CASAS-Centre for Advanced Studies of African

Society

Literacy as an ability involves reading for knowledge, writing coherently and thinking critically about the printed material (Nordquist, 2008). Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print.

In schools, many children struggle with learning to read( Phinn, 2000).

The Uganda National Curriculum looks very broadly at literacy, (Cummins, 2000)

The Thematic curriculum which also emphasises Literacy skills development

However, teachers were not oriented in using Local Languages as a medium of instruction, specific pedagogy on the different themes, sub themes and Learning Areas.

To date there is no specific popular methodology to teach Literacy.

Teachers are playing a big role at promoting literacy as they teach it to learners

A teacher needs to make adequate prior preparations (Cairney, 1990).

Literacy teachers are supposed to weekly themes into consideration

HOW TO TEACH LITERACY EFFECTIVELY Literacy is taught both in Local languages or the area language and

English language Teachers can use short but regular teaching lessons of Literacy

involving both reading and writing (Medwell, 1996).

Emphasise reading and writing processes like spellings, phonic knowledge, grammatical knowledge and punctuation should be made frequent when teaching Literacy,(Wray, 1993).

Teachers can also use modelling extensively by regularly demonstrating reading and writing to the class in a variety of ways, often accompany these demonstrations with verbal explanations of what you are doing (Gaskins, 2011).

Make use of materials, pictures and shapes to clearly relate the learning to the things that pupils see and know. (Cummins, 2000).

Teachers should prioritise creation of meaning in Literacy teaching.

To be effective, teachers of Literacy, should contextualise the teaching of language features within the shared text experiences to make connections for the pupils between text sentences and word levels of language study (Nordquist, 2008).

During lessons, teachers can involve reading and writing, published or printed teaching materials can be used to consolidate the language points that have been already taught (Cummins, 2000).

Place a high value upon communication and composition in your views about the teaching and writing (Sassoon, 1990).

Teachers can also keep children’s attention on the task at hand using clear time frames to keep them on task like concluding their lessons by reviewing or recapitulation with the whole class (Johnston and Watson, 2005).

Make a clear assessment procedure by usually involving them in a great deal of focussed observation (Sassoon, 1990).

METHODS OF TEACHING LITERACY

Whole Language approach for example, active full but short statements like ‘’i am jumping’’, ‘’i am eating’’, ‘’i am sitting’’.

Synthetic phonic approach for example ,blending sounds of letters into full words

Mixed/Balanced approach that is to say, the above two methods are combined.

HOW TO IMPART THE PILLARS OF LITERACY EFFICIENTLY TO THE LEARNERS

1. Phonemic awareness

This refers to the ability to notice, think about and work with the individual sounds in the words work. (Johnston and Watson, 2005).

Teach phonology with live references known to pupils for example animal sounds, clapping, stumping

It typically spans two years, kindergarten and primary one

It focuses on Rhyming, matching words with beginning sounds and blending sounds into words

Phonemes are the smallest parts of a sound in a spoken word that can make a difference in the word’s meaning. For example; hat, cat, bat, mat, fat.

Isolate phonemes to recognise individual sounds in a word for example b-a-t, b-o-y, c-u-p

Identify and recognise phonemes of same sounds but different words for example fix, fail, fun, feel, free

Categorise phonemes in words with odd sounds to detect pronunciation for example bug, bun, bud, rug, mug. However, rug and mug are the odd men out since they don’t begin with b

Teach and inform pupils exhaustively sounds that make up each word (Goswami, 1992).

2. Phonics Instruction/ structure Phonics refers to a method of teaching children to read by

teaching them to recognise and use sound-symbol correspondences (refer to the disc)

This aims at teaching a relationship between the letter of a written language and individual sounds of each spoken language. (Wray and Medwell, 2002).

Show the pupils the difference of what we talk from what we see in the same words for example girl, jump, mother,etc

3. Fluency Instruction

This refers to the ability to read a text accurately and quickly, in other words reading accurately and proper body and facial expression, (National Reading Panel, 2000).

When fluent readers read silently, they recognise words automatically.

Assist pupils group words quickly to help them gain meaning from what they read. For example kakopi kakopi

Fluent readers read aloud effortlessly and with expression For example ‘’Nnali njokya gonja ,kitange n’ava eri.........’’, kaggwa kaggwa..........

Readers who have not yet developed fluency read slowly murmuring, word by word, therefore, the teacher should discourage pupils from such poor reading habits for example Head ,shoulder, knees and toes.

Fluency is important because it provides

a bridge between word recognition and comprehension (Reading Links, 2002)

NOTE: The necessary platform for reading fluency and comprehension involves

Phonology (speech sounds) Orthography (spelling patterns) Semantics (word meaning) Syntax (grammar) Morphology (patterns of word

formation)

4. Vocabulary Instruction/Alphabet Awareness

This refers to the words we use to communicate with ease. It can be either oral or reading vocabulary.(Wray,1993).

A teacher can begin by teaching all the alphabetical letters

Separate vowels from consonants for pupils. Teach pupils to identify name, shape and

sound of each letter

About spellings, a teacher can also encourage learners to construct simple words themselves and later introduce new words to them beyond their vocabulary.

The spellings demonstrate knowledge of the alphabet by forming letters to represent the alphabet. No knowledge of sound symbol correspondences (Nordquist, 2008).

5. Text Comprehension Instruction Comprehension refers to the reason for reading. If the readers

can read words but do not understand what they are reading, they are not really reading.

• Good readers are both active and purposive

Comprehension is the understanding and interpreting of what is read (Gaskins,2011). Emphasise the following:

Explicit information • Main idea/ Theme Genre • Character Predicting • Comparing and Contrasting Setting • Authors purpose Sequence • Cause and effect •Voice

To achieve this, a teacher should help the children / pupils to:

Decode what they read . Make connections between what they read

and what they already know Think deeply about what they have read Accurately understand the written materials Above all, a teacher can encourage the

pupils to read silently and give tasks based on written statements (Medwell, 2007).

CHALLENGES FACED BY LITERACY TEACHERS AND WAY FORWARD.

Different language dialects of teaching Literacy in the same locality yet many of them lack orthography.

Teachers’ limited creativity and innovativeness as far as improvisation is concerned.

Deployment for Thematic Curriculum implementation.

Lack of relevant and adequate reading materials especially text books, charts, and placards.

Code mixing and switching by Local Language teachers

Under mining, low pride that is to say referred to as vernacular teachers that is derogative in consolation

An examination-result oriented public and some punishments attached by teachers

Low motivation to the teachers.

Lack of a systematic and clear procedure for transferring and deploying teachers.

Reluctance of the teachers to change from what they know.

‘’Silent classrooms’’ rather than a ‘’talking classroom’’.

Understaffing and lack of local language specialists.

The teacher –pupil ratio is high hence teacher centred.

CONCLUSION

Despite the challenges of the Education system to pave way for Literacy and increased quality learning in Uganda, the paper recognises the great work that is being done by the:

o Teachers who attempt teaching Literacy with less of teaching materials, low motivation, big numbers in class to mention but a few.

o NGOso Ministry of Education and Sports in

collaboration with National Curriculum Development Centre.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The teachers teaching Literacy, should go beyond mere pronunciation of names, reading and writing words.

Teachers can also train the children to derive meaning out of the articles they read.

The government of Uganda should also increase the payments for teachers.

The teaching of Literacy today needs to highly emphasise the last level of comprehension to enhance both writing and reading skills as important skills any pupil needs to have to fully construct and understand meaning of several words.

We parents, should always encourage our children to tell us things they have leant rather than what they have studied at school. 

Parents should also provide reading materials for their children like alphabetical charts.

Teachers should positively encourage learners to love reading and writing through active teaching and learning approaches

The Government of Uganda should play its role of motivating teachers and offer scholastic materials like text books to all the all schools to enable teachers do their work with ease.

PAVING WAY FOR LITERACY LEARNING IN UGANDA

FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY

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Problems. Oxford: Blackwell. Cairney,T. (1990) Teaching Reading Comprehension.

Buckingham: Open University Press. Chambers,A. (1993) Tell Me: Children, Reading and

Talk. Stroud: Thimble press. Cummins, J. (2000) Language, power and

pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Clevedon UK: Multilingual Matters.

Gaskins,W Irene.(2011) Interventions to developing decoding profficiences.

Goswami,U.(1992) ‘Rhyme Analogy and Children’s Reading’ in P.B. Gough et al (eds) Reading Acquisition.Norwood,N,J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Graves,D. (1983) Writing: Teachers and children at work . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

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Johnston,R. And Watson,J. (2005) The Effects of synthetic phonics teaching on reading and spelling attainment, Scottish website, Executive,11 February.

Medwell,J. And Wray, D. (2007) ‘Handwriting: what we know and need to know’, Literacy, 41(1).

National Reading Panel, (2000) Nordquist Richard,(2008) An essenstial history of

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Abingdon: Routledge. Phinn,G. (2000) Young Readers and their Books.

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Reading Links, (2000) Sassoon,R; (1990) Handwriting: The Way to Teach It.

Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes.

Wray,D. (2002) Practical ways to teach writing. Reading: National Centre for Language and Literacy.

Wray,D. And Medwell,j. (2002) Teaching Literacy Effectively. Abingdon: RoutltedgeFalmer.

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THE ALMIGHTY GOD BLESS YOU

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