World Book Day: In-class libraries a valuable learning tool

The Languaging-for-Learning (L4L) project – led by a team of academics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), in collaboration with colleagues from the University of the Western Cape, Rhodes University and Stellenbosch University, among others – aims to foster a love of reading among high school learners, and ultimately boost literacy levels among young South Africans.

According to the 2023 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), more than 80% of Grade 4 learners in South Africa cannot read for meaning. This concerning statistic highlights the urgent need for improvement to build a literate society, and cultivate a skilled workforce equipped with critical thinking and analytical skills.

In response, the L4L team, in collaboration with several schools in the Western Cape, has introduced in-class libraries – an initiative that learners have embraced enthusiastically. These libraries are dedicated spaces within classrooms where teachers display and store a variety of books, giving learners easy access throughout the school day.

This model is especially valuable in settings where education departments and governments face challenges in providing adequate community or school library infrastructure. Rooted in the principles of free reading and reading for enjoyment, in-class libraries also support the broader goal of integrating children’s literature across the curriculum.

“With in-class libraries, we want to immerse learners in books and reading, and foster a culture of reading. In schools located in communities without school and community libraries, in-class libraries make books accessible to children who would normally have to rely on school textbooks as their only source of reading material,” said Dr Soraya Abdulatief, of UCT’s School of Education (SoE).

Fundamental learning

Dr Abdulatief said the benefits of in-classroom libraries for learners are immense. They help broaden their views and perspectives on a variety of topics, while encouraging open conversation and debate, especially after learning something new. Through regular reading, she added, learners also develop their vocabulary, oral proficiency, sentence and grammatical structure, as well as an awareness of diverse subjects and issues.

“When learners are reading for enjoyment and reading something they chose themselves, fundamental learning is happening in the background.”

“When learners are reading for enjoyment and reading something they chose themselves, fundamental learning is happening in the background as they try to understand and get to the end of the story,” she said.

Abdulatief explained that the in-classroom libraries are well-stocked with a wide range of reading material across genres. These include both fiction – such as folklore, dramas, poetry and short stories – and non-fiction, including autobiographies, memoirs and informational texts. The books are available in English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa and Sesotho. Some teachers allow learners to take books home, while others dedicate specific classroom time for reading, giving learners the freedom to choose what they want to read during these sessions.

Fostering independent reading

Dr Xolisa Guzula, an early literacy expert in the SoE, described the in-classroom library model as a key pillar of the L4L project, supported by the Zenex Foundation. She explained that the initiative is designed to foster independent reading among learners, with two main goals: to broaden learners’ content knowledge across a range of subjects, and to support teachers as they teach different text types, including comprehension skills.

“This leg of the project formed part of L4L’s broader strategy to support Grade 8 and 9 teacher development. Teachers were provided with about 80 different books and were guided through the process on how to get things going in class. So far, it’s been well received and those books on teenage experiences are most popular,” Dr Guzula said.

She added that other elements of the L4L project focus on developing translanguaging pedagogies that draw on the bilingual and multilingual resources of both teachers and learners. This improves how educators teach English First Additional Language by focusing on text-based approaches to teaching language across the curriculum.

A significant step

Abdulatief and Guzula agree that in-classroom libraries represent an important step in addressing South Africa’s literacy crisis. By bridging the gap between theory and practice, these libraries connect the reading and writing skills taught in the classroom with meaningful, hands-on learning experiences.

“We believe that while learners are being taught the skills of reading and writing more directly in class, they should also engage with reading as a social practice.”

“We believe that while learners are being taught the skills of reading and writing more directly in class, they should also engage with reading as a social practice,” Guzula said.

Likening the process to learning how to drive, she explained that understanding the theory – the rules of the road – was as important as getting behind the wheel. “It’s only through everyday practice that someone becomes a good driver. The same holds true for reading and writing. As [Myles] Horton and [Paulo] Freire famously put it [in their conversations on education and social change], ‘We make the road by walking’.”