Early Grade Reading in South Africa

The descriptions in this paper show some 22 to 24 interventions (SMRS, GPLMS, EGRS, Funda Wande,etc.), depending on how and what one counts. These approximately 23 (taking the mid-point) interventions hadsome 17 inputs, processes or vectors into the programs implemented in schools (e.g., better materials, coaching,more parental involvement, etc.). The mere fact that there were more interventions than vectors suggests that many ofthese interventions were churning the same vectors or were re-inventing the wheel. A tabulation (not shown but carriedout by the authors) of interventions as columns and vectors as rows thus has 391 cells (17 times 23). But only 81 ofthem, or about 21 percent were filled, again suggesting a sort of constant churning of the same vectors. Some vectorswere present in 85 percent of the interventions. But there were also many cases where a certain vector gets tried onlyonce or twice, often in interventions that either were not evaluated or were evaluated but did not turn out well, whichsuggests why they may not have been tried much further even if attractive in principle. An example will be the use ofuniversity certification of certain teaching techniques, or competence testing of educators. Note the most commonvectors (not visible) are the most populated rows, and they are teacher training, teacher practices, and classroom resources.