South African teachers to get reading “toolkit”

The education department in South Africa is drawing up a set of guidelines for teachers to help them assess pupils’ reading skills, and to present various methods used to teach reading, the education department said May 25. The “toolkit” was still being finalized and would be piloted in some of South Africa’s poorest schools and in six languages in July, said Palesa Tyobeka, deputy director-general of general education and training. The guideline booklet explains methods used to teach reading, from the use of phonemes to vocabulary and how to build sentences. “We can't keep on making the assumption that teachers have been taught how to teach reading skills, when our children are not doing well,” Tyobeka said. Read the article at allAfrica.com.