We found that far too many children were entering school with weak oral language skills and were acquiring alphabetic knowledge and fluency far too slowly. This limited their reading comprehension and academic progress through school.

The Mzanzi kids multilingual language learning App was created for children between the ages of 2-6 years in South Africa. It was designed to stimulate visual, speech and language literacy skills at an early age by understanding basic everyday concepts and highlighting the correct pronunciation of speech in six (6) different languages; English, Afrikaans, IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Sepedi and Setswana. The integration of images and phonetics provides a good foundation for children to learn and speak in their mother tongue or home language with confidence and fluency, but most importantly comprehend and appreciate the diversity of languages used by South Africans. This multilingual App provides a good introduction before entering a schooling environment, and offers a non-threatening, playful and fun way of learning languages using innovative technology.

But in South Africa, 8 out of 10 children cannot read for meaning by the end of their third school year.

HOW TO IMPROVE TO MOTHER TONGUE LEARNING
Begin literacy teaching in mother tongueA curriculum, rooted in the child’s known language, cultureand environment, with appropriate and locally-developedreading and curriculum materials, is crucial for earlylearning success. Using the home language in the early stagesof schooling in multilingual contexts supports child-centricpolicies. It starts with what is familiar and builds in newknowledge. It creates a smooth transition between home andschool; it stimulates interest and ensures greaterparticipation and engagement. This prepares children for theacquisition of literacy and encourages fluency andconfidence in both the mother tongue and, later, in otherlanguages, where this is necessary.
Ensure availability of mother-tongue materialsChildren need to be engaged in and excited about readingand learning and this can only be done if the materials areones which they will understand and enjoy. In mostdeveloping countries, the only reading material children seeare school textbooks, which are often in very short supply.Other materials to support learning are hardly everavailable. Without access to good materials, children struggleto become literate and learn. In most low- and middle-income countries, the majority of primary schools have nolibrary, and books are luxuries which families cannot afford.For children from minority language communities, thesituation is even more dismal. Textbooks are rarely availablein local languages.
Provide early childhood education in mother tongueLiteracy development starts early in life, and the homeenvironment is an important factor in children’s learningachievement. It helps build the knowledge and skills childrenneed for learning to read. Where parents and the communityare supporting literacy development, results show a markedimprovement. The earlier children are exposed to stories thebetter their reading is: reading for only 15 minutes a day canexpose children to one million written words in a year,thereby helping them to develop a rich vocabulary. Childrenwith access to materials at home are more likely to developfluency in reading

educationaldesign research methodology.

class children and their teachers. There are two elements of the critique. Thefirst element focuses on the linguistic resources of children and teachers. Thecritique is that the knowledge project implicitly works from an English speakingnormative social universe and starting points, and does not field test or generateenough research placing African language children and teachers at the centre. Assuch, our ideas about literacy and mathematics do not build upon the languageresources of African language speaking children and teachers. The secondelement focuses on social class and its relation to education. The critique isthat the knowledge project implicitly works from a more middle class schoolingcontext, underestimating the exigencies of the poor and working class, deeplyrooted in historic neglect and the marginalisation of communities and schools

Adults do not perceive accessibility of reading materials in appropriate languages as a primary barrier to reading with children. Only 5% of adults who do not read with children said it wasbecause they did not have materials in the right languages (most said it was a lack of time). On the other hand, 79% of adults also report that they would read more with children if theycould access more materials in their preferred languages. This suggests that adults who are strongly motivated to read with children will do so, irrespective of materials access, but thatincreasing accessibility to reading materials in the right languages may increase the quality and amount of reading.71Figure 49

which is the national curriculum,emphasises the importance of student proficiency in at least two languages and being ableto communicate in others. The language-specific curricula follows an additive approach tomultilingualism, namely, all students learn a language on a “home language” level (which formost would be their home language) and at least one additional offi cial language, and becomecompetent in their additional language on a second-language level, while the home languageis maintained and developed.

Support effective teaching methodsSuccessful teaching of early literacy skills is dependent notonly on the provision of suitable materials, but also on theway these skills are introduced and taught. Rote learning andmemorization, with a textbook focus, will likely result in achild’s reading fluency and comprehension remaininglimited. Teachers need to use engaging instructionalstrategies, where children are active in the learning process.Such strategies only become feasible when childrenunderstand the language of instruction and can therefore beinteractively engaged.
Train and deploy mother tongue teachersMother-tongue education requires teachers whom share thelanguage and culture of the children. It also requires thatteachers are trained in the same language they are to teachin. Some teachers may not be truly proficient in the languageof instruction, and may struggle with teaching in a‘dominant’ language they are not fluent in themselves orthey may come from a minority language group and havebeen excluded from the learning process due to a lack oftraining materials in their language. Sometimes a lack ofunderstanding can cascade down the generations where ateacher, who never fully understood their own teacher, isattempting to teach a child who barely understands thelanguage.CONCLUSIONSMany children from corner to corner the developing worldare learning very little in school, a truth that can beconnected to teaching that is in a linguistic they do notcompletely understand. It is a practice that leads toinadequate or non-existent learning and acquisition ofknowledge and skills, alienating experiences, and high drop-out and repetition rates. To develop the quality of education,language policies need to take account of mother-tonguelearning. Models of education which ignore the mothertongue in the early years can be unproductive, ineffectiveand have a negative effect on children’s learning. Mother-tongue teaching at least in early years can enable teachers toteach, and learners to learn further effectively. For too long,mother-tongue education has been mostly unnoticed bypolicy makers. While there are encouraging signs that thepolicy pendulum is beginning to swing towards a greaterunderstanding of the importance of mother-tongue learning,there is still a long way to go. More governments aredeveloping policies and programmes that take account ofmother tongue in the early stages of learning, but there isstill a need to express better policies, make sure betterpreparation for the introduction of second languages andensure adequate resources are set aside. The GlobalCampaign for Education believes that evidence proposes thatthere is assured areas which should be prioritized in policydevelopment, to confirm more responsive and well nuancedpolicy development in the field of mother tongue learning