Browsing by Author "Rule, Peter N."

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Finding the plot in South African reading education
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2017) Rule, Peter N.; Land, Sandra
    This article argues that we have lost the plot in South African reading education. To find it, we need to move beyond the predominant mode of reading as oral performance, where the emphasis is on accuracy and pronunciation, to reading as comprehension of meaning in text. While reading research in South Africa has been conducted mainly in school contexts, this case study is of a school and Adult Basic Education and Training Centre in a rural KwaZulu-Natal community near Pietermaritzburg. It found that an oratorical approach to reading dominated in both settings. It suggests that developing the way in which teachers understand the teaching of reading and transforming the teaching practices of those who teach as they were taught in the education system of the apartheid era are key to improving the teaching of reading.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Getting the boys involved : using an interactive questionnaire to investigate Grade 6 boys’ writing
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2017) Mather, Nazarana; Rule, Peter N.
    Whilst research has been conducted on reading skills at primary school level in South Africa, not much research exists on writing, especially boys’ writing. This article focuses on the use of an interactive questionnaire to get Grade 6 boys involved in research that is based on a cycle of the writing programme as prescribed by the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement. Underpinned by literature on research with children and on boys’ learning and writing, a questionnaire was developed, piloted and adapted to engage boys actively in the research process and facilitate ease of use. The questionnaire was then administered to 39 Grade 6 boys from two schools in KwaZulu-Natal. An evaluation of the use of the questionnaire found that four key lessons emerged: attention to affective responses, supporting and scaffolding the process, using appropriate multi-modality and using incentives to engage participants. The article argues that careful consideration of the research participants’ interests, age, gender and cultural motivation is an important part of affording them agency in the research process.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Imaginative play and reading development among Grade R learners in KwaZulu-Natal : an ethnographic case study
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2018-06) Neha, Mitasha; Rule, Peter N.
    This article argues that imaginative play can fulfil a valuable role in the development of reading among pre-school children. It uses Feuerstein’s Mediated Learning Experience as a theoretical lens and defines the concepts related to imaginative play, focussing particularly on symbolic and dramatic play. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of the reading development of four pre-schoolers, aged between 5 and 6, in their home environments in KwaZulu-Natal, it shows how imaginative play is a generative aspect of early reading in the home. It is through imaginative play that the children were able to make sense of what they had read, transfer it to other contexts and explore its implications in a child-centred way. Imaginative play can take early reading from the realms of print and digital media into those of movement, dressing-up, role-playing, visual and aural stimulation – holistic and integrative ways of ‘comprehending’ the text. The article concludes with a discussion of the challenges and potential pedagogical implications of the research findings.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Imaginative play and reading development among Grade R learners in KwaZulu-Natal : an ethnographic case study
    (AOSIS, 2018) Nehal, Mitasha; Rule, Peter N.
    This article argues that imaginative play can fulfil a valuable role in the development of reading among pre-school children. It uses Feuerstein’s Mediated Learning Experience as a theoretical lens and defines the concepts related to imaginative play, focussing particularly on symbolic and dramatic play. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of the reading development of four pre-schoolers, aged between 5 and 6, in their home environments in KwaZulu-Natal, it shows how imaginative play is a generative aspect of early reading in the home. It is through imaginative play that the children were able to make sense of what they had read, transfer it to other contexts and explore its implications in a child-centred way. Imaginative play can take early reading from the realms of print and digital media into those of movement, dressing-up, role-playing, visual and aural stimulation – holistic and integrative ways of ‘comprehending’ the text. The article concludes with a discussion of the challenges and potential pedagogical implications of the research findings.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The pedagogy of Jesus in the parable of the Good Samaritan : a diacognitive analysis
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2017) Rule, Peter N.
    Jesus of Nazareth, like Socrates, left nothing behind written by himself. Yet, the records of his teaching indicate a rich interest in dialogic pedagogy, reflected in his use of the parable, primarily an oral genre, as a dialogic provocation. Working at the interface of pedagogy, theology and philosophy, this article explores the parable of the Good Samaritan from the perspective of dialogic pedagogy. It employs an analytical approach termed diacognition, developed from the notions of dialogue, position and cognition, to analyse the moves within the parable and the teaching situation in which it is located. The article explores how Jesus engages the dialogue of and around the parable to position and reposition his interlocutor, provoking a re-cognition of what it means to love one’s neighbour. It concludes by reflecting on the implications of this analysis for the relation of meaning to knowing and doing.