Children are struggling to master the most basic reading skills in their home language in the foundation phase (grades 1-3).

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

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