Background: South Africa's PIRLS 2021 outcomes revealed that learners struggle with comprehension. The reasons for poor reading need to be identified and addressed to stem this challenge. Aim: This study assessed Sesotho Grade 4 learners' knowledge of simple and complex letter sounds, their oral reading fluency and the relationship to their oral…

Background: The high number of poor-performing learners in reading comprehension in South African schools is a concerning factor that calls for studies to mitigate this problem. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) of 2021 indicates that about 81% of South African Grade 4 learners who participated, failed to reach the…

Background: While the concept of translanguaging has gained significant traction in education in multilingual contexts, it is also debated and contested. Claims are made about what translanguaging can and cannot do, how different it might be from code-switching, whether it arises from a single repertoire of language resources or from use of…

In many countries, children need to become proficient in both their home language (L1) and an international language, such as English (L2). Governments face tradeoffs in how to prioritize these two objectives. We provide empirical evidence on cross-linguistic transfer between L1 and L2, using the results of two randomized evaluations of Structured…

Background: PIRLS 2021 results revealed that South African Grade 4 learners performed significantly lower compared to other countries in reading comprehension and that they did not reach the standardised international mean score of 500. It was also evident from the results that English learners performed relatively higher than isiZulu learners.…

Background: The concept of 'learner voice' has received global attention in recent years, frequently credited to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The UNCRC recognises that children have (1) the right to express a view and (2) the right to have the view given due weight. However, in many countries, including South…

Ticks and crosses (TCs) are a common aspect of teachers' classroom practice in relation to assessment in many learning areas including mathematics. Putting TCs in learners' written work is a strategy of feedback. Even though these TCs are frequently used in different types of mathematics assessments, there is limited research in relation to what…

Background: According to the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS, 2006 with 87%, 2011 with 82%, 2016 with 78%, 2021 with 81%), an international reading comprehension assessment conducted at the Grade 4 level, South African learners perform very poorly in reading comprehension, even when reading in their African home languages.…

One of the main objectives of international large-scale assessments is to make comparisons between different countries, education policies, education systems, or subgroups. One of the main criteria for making comparisons between different groups is to ensure measurement invariance. The purpose of this study was to test the measurement invariance…

This paper illuminates challenges confronting teachers and students at the literacy/numeracy interface in contexts where students have not developed sufficient English language proficiency to be learning mathematics through English but, due to socio-politically and economically driven perceptions are being taught in English. We analyse transcript…

Background: The Progress in International Reading and Literacy 2021 results draw stark attention to an ongoing crisis in primary education in South Africa. Research attempting to understand and address continued underperformance has focused on literacy learning and teaching in schools where the language of learning and teaching (LOLT) is the same…

There is an urgent need to establish classroom libraries, especially in rural areas where learners hardly come across any reading material. The purpose of this study was to investigate how teachers set up classroom libraries in rural areas of the Mogodumo circuit in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The study was qualitative in nature. Fifteen…

This paper investigates in-service intermediate phase mathematics teachers' metacognitive awareness based on their engagement in a professional development intervention in two rural and one township school in South Africa. Professional teacher development interventions should be structured and collaborative as teachers tend to revert to…

Background: A large number of studies have established that reading for comprehension in South African schools is comparably poor relative to other Southern African states. Some of these studies confirm that learners' competency in reading in English is lacking when contextualised in a learning environment. Various systemic evaluations were…

This study investigated grade 4 learners' understandings about the Nature of Scientific Inquiry (NOSI) in primary schools within the South African context. A qualitative methodology was employed using a framework of five knowledge aspects about the NOSI in assessing learners' understandings about the ways scientists investigate the natural world.…