An examination of the effectiveness of a digital tool as an intervention measure to improve the reading comprehension skills of high school learners

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The current level of literacy in South Africa is cause for concern. The Annual National Assessment ofLiteracy and Numeracy, conducted nationally by the National Department of Education of SouthAfrica, shows that only 28% of Grade 3 learners and 35% of Grade 6 learners passed these tests in2011 (Department of Basic Education (a), 2011). According to the policy on progression andpromotion issued by the National Department of Education, learners may only be retained once in aphase, which means that these learners may lack essential academic literacy skills when they reachhigh school.The main concern addressed in this thesis is whether high school teachers can help improveacademic literacy by using reading comprehension software, like Reading Rocket, as an interventiontool to help learners who struggle with reading comprehension, and whether Reading Rocket is infact an effective program to use for such purposes.This study was conducted by using data from one school within the Western Cape which has beenusing Reading Rocket for the past three years. Use of the program forms part of their timetable, andGrade 8 and 9 learners spend twice per cycle working with the program. Learners are first tested onentering Grade 8 and group reports are retrieved from the program each term to monitor theirprogress. These reports give a summary of the reading level, the percentage gained in the readingexercises, reading speed in w.p.m and a spelling score in percentage. This data was used to compilea summary of the results obtained over six terms Term 1 2010 until Term 3 2011. These results werecompared with quarterly classroom (paper‐based) comprehension and language tests in order todetermine is a correlation between the program data and the paper‐based test data. There is nocontrol group for this study as all the Grade 8 and 9 learners use the program.There is no conclusive evidence that the program is an effective intervention tool, but findings showa positive correlation between program data and paper‐based test data which indicates that theprogram may be used as a tool to determine on what grade level learners read.Given the numerous responsibilities and duties of teachers, it is essential that they are given aneffective measuring tool for literacy and because computer software is essentially objective andtime‐effective in provide results, using computer technology for such purposes may be part of asolution to improve literacy in South Africa.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University