Background: This article describes how the National Reading Barometer project has redefined the concept of 'reading culture' in South Africa. Objectives: As expressed in the 2023 National Reading Survey (N = 4250) and the 2023 National Reading Barometer, a clearer description of reading cultures was developed to describe both individual reading…

Background: Owing to the dearth of reading practices within the South African literacy landscape, many learners neither engage in productive reading habits, nor exhibit a positive attitude towards English First Additional Language (EFAL) reading. Consequently, many learners experience reading challenges, which negatively impact on their academic…

Notwithstanding the substantial transformation of education in South Africa in the last 20 years, specifically to redress the past inequalities, the challenges are ongoing. These challenges include tertiary institutions having to accommodate a culturally and linguistically diverse group of students, often second-language (L2) English speakers, in…

This article explores the contradiction between student teachers' acknowledgement of the importance of reading and their actual personal reading habits, and by doing so, attempts to dig below the surface and 'take stock' of future teachers' attitudes towards reading at a private tertiary institution in Durban, South Africa. The rationale is that…

The Children's Literature Research Unit at the University of South Africa, Pretoria, implemented a research project examining what young people were reading at the end of the 20th century, similar to a research project which had been carried out at Roehampton Institute in London (1996). The research began with a pilot project. Its goals were to:…

This paper focuses on a 1997 pilot project carried out in five secondary schools in South Africa that examined children's reading and information use. This study (n=958) was part of a larger study from 1995 and 1996 carried out in the United Kingdom. The primary goal was to examine what young people are reading at the end of the 20th century. The…