Ontwerp en toetsing van 'n intervensieprogram vir gesyferdheid vir graad 2- en 3-leerders

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Learning and the development of numeracy in the foundation phase are regarded as highly important. In this critical period learners attain the fundamental knowledge that is needed for future learning and development.A serious problem within South African schools is that a great number of foundation phase learners show difficulties in numeracy. Various reasonscan be provided for these difficulties, for example, learners do not receivegood teaching, they hold negative attitudes towards numeracy, theyencounter language barriers, and so forth.It is important that the learners' difficulties in numeracy are attended toimmediately and effectively, to be able to minimise the gaps between thelearners' functioning level and the level the learner is suppose to be on. TheWestern Cape Education Department (WCED) laid bare their concern with thecurrent problem in numeracy when they launched the WCED Literacy andNumeracy Strategy 2006-2016. As part of this the Metropole North Educationand Management Development Centre (EMDC) requested and implementedan intervention programme for grade 2 and grade 3 learners.Part of this problem is that many foundation phase educators lack thenecessary knowledge to identify the learners with difficulties and especially toattend to these difficulties.The goal of this research study was to investigate the realization of an earlyintervention programme implemented over a limited period of time of tenweeks in grade 2 and grade 3 classrooms. The current study aimed atproviding educators with resources to offer learning support to theirdisadvantaged learners within the Numeracy classroom. This study hasimplications for the way in which educators approach and teach numeracy, aswell as for the type of learning support the educators provide theirdisadvantaged learners with.The intervention programme is based on a problem centered approach withconstructivism as underlying epistemology. This approach views the educatoras a facilitator who provides the learners with opportunities to be activelyinvolved in the learning environment to construct knowledge. The importanceof word problems and discussion within the Numeracy classroom areemphasized and it is necessary that the educator create the appropriateclassroom atmosphere so that this approach can be implemented effectively.Learning is an active process and it is the responsibility of the educator toprovide the learners with appropriate learning activities for learning anddevelopment to take place.The study made use of programme evaluation as research methodology.Programme evaluation refers to a research goal instead of specific researchmethods, because various methods can be used which may be quantitative orqualitative in nature. The gathering of data was done through classroomobservations by the researcher, informal interviews with participatingeducators, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews with the educatorsat the four schools the researcher monitored intensively during theimplementation process of the intervention programme. The gathering of datawas an ongoing process and the researcher analysed and interpreted thelearners' work at the end of the implementation process. The researcherchecked this analysis by means of the literature review, transcripts and fieldnotes. This formed the basis on which conclusions and recommendationscould be made.The conclusions confirmed the importance of early intervention and theefficacy of the problem centered approach within the numeracy classroom. Italso confirmed the disadvantages of the training model that was used, that isthe Cascade model. With this study it was possible to determine that a tenweek intervention programme was too short a period to observe meaningfulimprovements in learners. Therefore further research should be done onaddressing learners' difficulties and to train and support educators to providelearning support to their learners.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University