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Speaker 1: Seven oh two Weekend Breakfast and Parenting with Nicky Bush.

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Speaker 2: It's at fifteen minutes after eight o'clock. Welcome back to

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Speaker 2: your seven oh two weekend breakfast with Mekok's and Pilgrim.

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Speaker 2: Time for us to talk parenting, and this week we're

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Speaker 2: talking about not a new issue, but it is once

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Speaker 2: again in the news, the issue of literacy, the ability

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Speaker 2: of particularly children in grades three, four and five to

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Speaker 2: read for understanding. We hear every year about the concerning

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Speaker 2: number of kids in those particular grades, in that age

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Speaker 2: group that cannot read for meaning, they cannot make sense of,

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Speaker 2: you know, a bit of writing, a question that's been

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Speaker 2: put in front of them, and so again this question

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Speaker 2: of so how do we address this literacy challenge, because

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Speaker 2: of course it has an impact on children throughout their schooling,

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Speaker 2: even impacting the ways in which they progress in their schooling,

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Speaker 2: the ways in which they understand work well after matric

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Speaker 2: as well. And so joining us this morning as our

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Speaker 2: resident human potential and parenting experts Nikki Bush. Of course

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Speaker 2: we take your calls as well on one, one, eight

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Speaker 2: three or seven oh two. Send us a what'sapp on

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Speaker 2: seven two, seven oh one, seven oh two Nikki is

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Speaker 2: always good to have you in studio.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, Good morning, gooks. So some sobery news, but

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Speaker 1: not new news.

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Speaker 2: We've known of this particular challenge for a while, the

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Speaker 2: concerning number of children in grades three, four and five

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Speaker 2: who just cannot understand a thing that's been put in

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Speaker 2: front of them and they're asked to read it. They

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Speaker 2: just don't have the comprehension.

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Speaker 1: Gooks. This is a thirty year old historical problem.

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Speaker 3: And when I saw the news headlines, and I rarely

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Speaker 3: buy a newspaper because I usually read them when I'm

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Speaker 3: at the airport for free.

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Speaker 1: But when I saw this headline in.

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Speaker 3: The Citizen on Wednesday, I have to say that every year,

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Speaker 3: at the same time every year when this news comes out,

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Speaker 3: there's lots of stumping of feet and gnashing of teeth

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Speaker 3: from me, right, because this is unnecessary. This is a

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Speaker 3: crime against our children. I feel incredibly strongly about this

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Speaker 3: because it doesn't just impact on their education, it impact

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Speaker 3: on them for the rest of their lives. There is

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Speaker 3: a limit to what you can do if you cannot

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Speaker 3: decode the world through reading. Because our entire world is

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Speaker 3: encoded in vocabulary and words. We are doing every single

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Speaker 3: generation that is coming through the school doors an absolute

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Speaker 3: disservice because if you cannot read for meaning, if you

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Speaker 3: cannot actually even recognize a word, and this is what

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Speaker 3: this particular Reading Panel research report states that fifteen percent

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Speaker 3: of grade three pupils cannot decode even a single word

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Speaker 3: by the end of their third year of formal schooling.

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Speaker 3: This is such a bleak picture because the only way

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Speaker 3: to fix that group of children in grade three is

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Speaker 3: to give them one on one remediation. That does not

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Speaker 3: exist in our government school system. You cannot remediate entire

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Speaker 3: classrooms of children with one teacher who's supposed to be

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Speaker 3: teaching the kids who ready to read, as well as

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Speaker 3: remediating the children who can't read. So in high end

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Speaker 3: government schools and in private schools and in communities where

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Speaker 3: you can afford remedial teachers and occupational therapy and things

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Speaker 3: like that, you can fix the problem when there are

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Speaker 3: bricks missing in the wall.

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Speaker 1: You can't do it on mass.

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Speaker 3: And our problem in this country is the mass of

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Speaker 3: children who cannot read and write. So I get very

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Speaker 3: upset because I really do believe it is criminal. You

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Speaker 3: are taking away people's ability to earn an income you

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Speaker 3: are taking away their ability to express who they are.

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Speaker 3: This is literally cutting these children down at the knees.

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Speaker 3: What I did like about this year's coverage and reporting

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Speaker 3: is that finally, finally, we are getting to the root

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Speaker 3: cause where we are seeing in this article that I

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Speaker 3: read that assessments have long indicated learning gaps begin in

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Speaker 3: the early grades, not in matric, not in the intermediate

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Speaker 3: or senior phase, but in the foundation phase itself. Now,

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Speaker 3: that is the truth, and that is where we have

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Speaker 3: to work. And you and I have had many conversations

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Speaker 3: when matric results come out where I go, we don't

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Speaker 3: fix matric in matric. We don't fix it in grade

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Speaker 3: ten or eleven. We fix it in the preschool because

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Speaker 3: we need to imagine children like a brick wall. A

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Speaker 3: big brick wall has foundations beneath ground level that you

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Speaker 3: cannot see. That's where your foundations are. That's where the

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Speaker 3: perceptual skills are created. That are the foundation for reading

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Speaker 3: and writing. So we're talking things like sorting, matching, categorizing.

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Speaker 3: Find me all the apples and give me all the bananas,

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Speaker 3: Find me all the triangles and then give me all

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Speaker 3: the squares. What are the differences between these two groups,

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Speaker 3: because it's similarities and differences that are going to help

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Speaker 3: your child to be able to decode and tell the

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Speaker 3: difference between a P and a B and a D

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Speaker 3: and an A and an E and a C. Because

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Speaker 3: there are small differences that make the big difference. If

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Speaker 3: you can spot the difference, if you can spot the similarities,

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Speaker 3: you are starting to gain the skills that will enable

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Speaker 3: you to read and write. Now, those things are not

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Speaker 3: necessarily taught in primary school. That's what we're taught in preschool.

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Speaker 3: And our big issue is that most of our children

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Speaker 3: in South Africa do not have the luxury of a

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Speaker 3: decent preschool education where all these foundational perceptual skills are

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Speaker 3: taught and acquired and these become the strong foundations for

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Speaker 3: reading and writing.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think it was this week we heard

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Speaker 2: from Basic Education ministers Sevier Gabe speaking about how her

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Speaker 2: department was still very concerned about ECD, saying that is

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Speaker 2: foundational for us, and I think they'd committed to is

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Speaker 2: it ten thousand, ten thousand, Yes, they managed to do.

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Speaker 2: They managed to go beyonderteen.

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Speaker 3: Thousand, three hundred registered ECD centers. But and here's a

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Speaker 3: big butt. What is happening in those ECD centers. Are

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Speaker 3: they glorified daycare babysitting centers? Because I've walked into many

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Speaker 3: over the years, even centers where the teachers have been

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Speaker 3: trained on play based learning so that children can acquire

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Speaker 3: these perceptual skills. And in the space of literally two

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Speaker 3: hundred meters, I've walked into different homes because often they

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Speaker 3: are in homes in places like Deep Slurt or Zevan Fontean, etc. Okay,

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Speaker 3: we need them on every street corner, we really do.

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Speaker 3: But what happens in those daycare centers or ECD centers

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Speaker 3: is critical. So in one center, I.

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Speaker 1: Will see.

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Speaker 3: A woman who's the teacher, the granny the goggle, sitting

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Speaker 3: on the floor with twenty five children climbing all over

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Speaker 3: her while she's reading a story to them. And that's fantastic.

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Speaker 3: They're sitting around her there on top of her. There's

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Speaker 3: this like a family thing going on while they're listening

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Speaker 3: to the story. Then I go into the next doorplace

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Speaker 3: and there is a woman sitting with a baby on

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Speaker 3: her lap, a baby in a cut and fifteen children

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Speaker 3: sitting so beautifully well behaved in lines three lines of

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Speaker 3: five staring at a blank wall for the whole day.

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Speaker 3: She's sitting with a shelving unit full of games, toys

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Speaker 3: and books that she has been trained to use, but

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Speaker 3: she does not use them because those are almost like trophies, right,

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Speaker 3: Because if your culture doesn't give you that lineage of

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Speaker 3: why do we use games and toys and that interaction

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Speaker 3: is important, you actually keep the children clean, you keep

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Speaker 3: them quiet, you keep them well fed, and you've done

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Speaker 3: your job.

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Speaker 1: And that is a travesty.

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Speaker 3: So there's a lot of work that has to be

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Speaker 3: done to ensure that those ECD centers are actually doing

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Speaker 3: more than just babysitting. Yeah, otherwise we still shall I say,

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Speaker 3: farting against thunder?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean the other I guess concern. There's

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Speaker 2: now increasing research financial times that are big piece last

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Speaker 2: year just looking at unfortunately there is this global decline

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Speaker 2: in people reading for pleasure. There's a global decline in

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Speaker 2: literacy and adults, so adults themselves can no longer read

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Speaker 2: for meaning and the numbers.

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Speaker 1: And it is across the board.

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Speaker 2: It also is across class groups, from people who for

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Speaker 2: instance didn't finish school to people who did. And there

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Speaker 2: has been a concern from educator is that well, if

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Speaker 2: the parents can't read or read for understanding, read for meaning,

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Speaker 2: how then are they going to assist their children to

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Speaker 2: do the same. So there's also that layer as well

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Speaker 2: that this decline in literacy rates is also young teens,

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Speaker 2: young adults and adults as well.

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Speaker 3: Currently absolutely so learning to read requires effort. It's a process.

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Speaker 3: You don't just arrive in grade one, open a book

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Speaker 3: and read. There is so much that goes into reading,

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Speaker 3: and I think that for many people, particularly in our country,

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Speaker 3: the panacea for literacy has been send your child to school.

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Speaker 3: But that doesn't cut it. We need our children. There's

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Speaker 3: no magic wand and reading doesn't just happen between the

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Speaker 3: covers of books. Reading is actually a very physical process.

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Speaker 3: We have to have strong enough visual systems to be

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Speaker 3: able to read. So if you go to a decent

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Speaker 3: ecd center or preschool, reading starts in the body. Reading

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Speaker 3: stuff worth balancing on one leg. Reading starts with bilateral

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Speaker 3: integration when the left and the right sides of the

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Speaker 3: body work at the same time. Reading starts with crossing

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Speaker 3: the mid line. These are all perceptual skills that are

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Speaker 3: required in the early years, so that when you read,

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Speaker 3: your eyes track from left to right they don't jump

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Speaker 3: that you are reading along a line, not up and

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Speaker 3: down a line, that you can read in the mid line.

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Speaker 1: Because where do you hold a book.

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Speaker 3: You hold it in the mid line of your body.

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Speaker 3: Where is this microphone right now? It's in the mid

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Speaker 3: line of our bodies. Where do you hold a cell phone?

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Speaker 3: Usually in the mid line of your body. Okay, but

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Speaker 3: your eyes need to be strong enough to converge at

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Speaker 3: the same rate in the mid line. And so we

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Speaker 3: don't just give our children books and cell phones for

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Speaker 3: learning to read. We give them threading activities. We give

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Speaker 3: them pegging activities where you put pegs in a peg

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Speaker 3: board where you pick a shape up or a peg

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Speaker 3: up from across your midline. So if you're right handed,

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Speaker 3: we put all the little pegs on the left hand

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Speaker 3: side of a child. They have to pick them up

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Speaker 3: by crossing the midline and bring a peg back and

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Speaker 3: have to copy a picture off a copy card or

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Speaker 3: a task card onto their pegboard. These are all pre

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Speaker 3: reading and pre writing games that help children to acquire

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Speaker 3: all the basic skills in order to finally be able

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Speaker 3: to read. It's the same with writing, and please maybe

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Speaker 3: always have handwriting in schools like real handwriting, no matter

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Speaker 3: how digital the world gets. And that's because writing on

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Speaker 3: a line okay, requires a lot of physical coordination, your

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Speaker 3: fine mode of coordination, your gross mode of coordination, because

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Speaker 3: you're sitting in a chair and you're holding yourself up

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Speaker 3: against gravity. And then when you are actually doing proper handwriting,

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Speaker 3: you are still relating the creative side of your brain.

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Speaker 3: It's firing up different sides of the brain to typing,

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Speaker 3: so you're accessing creative thought. Then, of course we have

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Speaker 3: memory skills in reading because we have to remember what

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Speaker 3: we read, and we also have to remember the shape

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Speaker 3: of a word and the shape of letters, so the

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Speaker 3: word that has this very specific outline different to the

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Speaker 3: word and and then we also need to get children

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Speaker 3: reading frequent words. So the ants that is that she's

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Speaker 3: the it's all those short words that occur often help

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Speaker 3: children once they know what they look like, to develop

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Speaker 3: reading fluency and speed.

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Speaker 1: So there's so much.

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Speaker 3: This reading conversation is massive, and I don't think that

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Speaker 3: most well, I know that most parents don't understand it.

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Speaker 3: And I really believe, I strongly believe that our younger

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Speaker 3: teachers who did not go through teacher training colleges who

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Speaker 3: have done degrees in education do not understand the foundations

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Speaker 3: and fundamentals of actually how the brain learns. There is

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Speaker 3: a chasm between teachers who are kind of forty to

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Speaker 3: sixty year old and younger teachers. They don't know the

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Speaker 3: same stuff, and it's problematic. So I really do think

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Speaker 3: that we should be bringing back teacher training colleges. We

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Speaker 3: need to be doing a lot more practical stuff, not

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Speaker 3: academic stuff, with people who are going to teach children

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Speaker 3: how to learn. In fact, the neuroscience, interestingly that's coming

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Speaker 3: out now is confirming everything that our ECD preschool teachers

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Speaker 3: learnt thirty years ago that's not being taught today in

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Speaker 3: our university curriculum.

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Speaker 2: Regard a question here on WhatsApp asking you know, so

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Speaker 2: how can we help with this issue of early childhood literacy?

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Speaker 2: Because I mean, we get that reading panel report, we

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Speaker 2: get it every year every year. It's generally quite you know,

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Speaker 2: disappointing to share the numbers, and I can get the

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Speaker 2: WhatsApp means it's kind of asking, okay, so what do

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Speaker 2: we do?

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Speaker 1: What can we do well in our homes?

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Speaker 3: Because I think the people who are listening right now

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Speaker 3: are probably grandparents and parents in our homes. We need

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Speaker 3: to talk our children clever, and that means from the

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Speaker 3: day they're born onwards, this conversation needs to be going

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Speaker 3: full stop, the stream of words flowing between you, and

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Speaker 3: it's everything from describing describing the construction site you're looking

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Speaker 3: at out the taxi window, to what you're eating to

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Speaker 3: what you're wearing. Because how do we build vocamp in

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Speaker 3: our children by talking to them? And it's real because

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Speaker 3: they're interacting with their clothes, they're interacting with food, they're

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Speaker 3: interacting with toys and games. That's how we teach our

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Speaker 3: children clever. There was an us to be a good

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Speaker 3: listener so that they can talk to us and know

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Speaker 3: that we're going to respond. So there's the serve and return.

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Speaker 3: Please read stories together, Please bring back books. The love

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Speaker 3: of reading in a home is very indicative of whether

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Speaker 3: children will read intrinsically be motivated to read. And it's

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Speaker 3: the emotional connection between you and your children that makes

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Speaker 3: them feel this love of learning because it's cuddling up

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Speaker 3: with them on the couch, cuddling up with them in bed,

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Speaker 3: reading a bedtime story, and then always ask your children

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Speaker 3: questions about what you read them. Are they comprehending what

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Speaker 3: you're actually reading. What color was the elephant? How many

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Speaker 3: children were in the family, what was mommy making for supper?

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Speaker 3: Did they actually listen and did they actually remember? Because

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Speaker 3: working memory is hugely important for every task we do

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Speaker 3: in everyday life. So are they holding onto what was read,

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Speaker 3: what they heard, and can they put it into action?

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Speaker 3: Can you dance like the donkey in the book? Can

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Speaker 3: you quack like the duck? So getting them to enact

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Speaker 3: what they've just heard. Playing memory games. So the famous

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Speaker 3: one is I went to the shops and bought So

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Speaker 3: when you are going to the shops, have a shopping

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Speaker 3: list and start playing that game. We're going to the

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Speaker 3: shops to buy milk, and we're going to the shops

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Speaker 3: to buy milk and bread. And then they have to

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Speaker 3: keep adding onto that list. So I went to the shops,

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Speaker 3: or we're going to the shops. Or we went to

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Speaker 3: the beach, or we're going to the beach. We went

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Speaker 3: to the game reserve and we saw so helping children

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Speaker 3: to remember what they have seen and heard. And then

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Speaker 3: association games were association games where I say something like.

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Speaker 1: I I'm going to say a word blue.

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Speaker 3: What do you associate with Blueg's ocean, and I associate

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Speaker 3: sharks with the ocean. What do you associate to sharks

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Speaker 3: orcas killer whales or whales? Okay?

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Speaker 1: So then I say hermanas. Oh okay.

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Speaker 3: You see how our conversation can go from blue to

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Speaker 3: hermanas and everything in between. And I could have said,

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Speaker 3: or you could have said when I say for sharks,

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Speaker 3: we could have said rugby association. And so getting children

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Speaker 3: to think wide and deep, and then you can do

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Speaker 3: something really easy like and today's letter is and you

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Speaker 3: can start with sh ought and your child has to

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Speaker 3: come up with a word that starts with that sound.

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Speaker 3: So there's so much we can do at home to

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Speaker 3: actually support our children in learning how to read and

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Speaker 3: developing a love of the spoken word and the written word.

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Speaker 3: So please, parents, do whatever you can, and let's try

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Speaker 3: and really encourage our Department of Education to look at

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Speaker 3: where the foundations of reading starts, which is in the

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Speaker 3: ECD phase long before children go to school.

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Speaker 2: Nicky as always a great pleasure having you in the studio.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time, thank you.

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Speaker 1: Guts.

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Speaker 2: Coming up, we have a look at what's happening in

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Speaker 2: seven oh two Land We'll start with Fashion the Image,

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Speaker 2: celebrating the evolution of fashion photography. Roger Ballin, who is

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Speaker 2: the founder of the Roger Balin Center for Photography as

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Speaker 2: well as a globally acclaimed fashion, advertising and art photographer.

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Speaker 2: Court will join us to speak to us about Fashion

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Speaker 2: the Image. It opened today in seven to Land, but

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Speaker 2: first it's twenty six minutes before nine o'clock. Is checking

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Speaker 2: with you later as our witness New Sport