Reducing repetition rates in the early grades in South Africa: Are there implications for early grade reading?

• In Event: Accountability

Proposal

Early grade repetition in South Africa has been viewed as a remedial strategy in the absence of comprehensive remediation approaches within the education system. Compared to other upper-middle-income nations and certain Sub-Saharan African counterparts, South Africa has high Grade 1 repetition rates although there has been a slight reduction in repetition rates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the cost associated with retention policy, should one be concerned about declining repetition trends in the early grades if it is used as a substitute for systematic remediation? In reading, failing to gain mastery in foundational reading skills such as alphabetic knowledge and reading fluency can severely curtail comprehension and learning in later grades (Wills, Ardington & Sebaeng, 2022). Foundational literacy instruction is not included in the curriculum beyond Grades 1-3, leaving little room for learners to ‘catch-up’. Could unplanned reductions in Foundation Phase repetition impact on the acquisition of crucial foundational skills? Given the prevalence of early grade repetition in South Africa, it is important to examine these patterns, the accuracy of such decisions, and whether there are potential short-term advantages of repetition for acquiring early grade reading skills, specifically decoding skills and fluency in the home language.

Against this context, this paper has three aims. The first is to provide further specificity on early grade repetition patterns in South Africa, comparing repetition rates with other upper-middle-income and Sub-Saharan African countries. The second is to interrogate the fidelity of progression and repetition decisions in the Foundation Phase (Grades 1-3) in relation to three sub-research questions. Are learners that will be retained in early grades much more behind academically their progressed peers? Prior to when progression decisions are made, to what extent are their differences in the academic performance of those that will be progressed and those retained? The paper then examines the extent of misclassification in decisions to progress learners drawing on newly established early grade reading benchmarks (Ardington et al., 2021) as a signal of being on track. A third aim of the paper is to examine whether there are any benefits of repetition for early learning in South Africa, particularly in the Foundation Phase where mastering basic literacy and numeracy skills is crucial to effectively accessing the curriculum in later grades.

The analysis takes a twofold conceptual approach to estimating repetition effects conducting both same-age comparisons and same-grade comparisons of foundational reading skills (Valbuena 2021). Same-age comparisons evaluate students’ achievement after repeating against that of their promoted peers who are at least one grade ahead. The original age cohort is compared within the same time period. By contrast same-grade comparisons evaluate the achievement of repeated students against promoted students at the same grade level. In application, repeated students’ performance is assessed at least one year later than their promoted peers from the same cohort.

Data from two reading intervention impact studies are used for these analyses, namely the first and second Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS I and EGRS II) conducted in no-fee schools in two South African provinces. These data are suited to analysing reading trajectories of repeaters and non-repeaters because within an assessment period, the same tasks were administered regardless of a learners’ grade progression status. Tasks are also comparable across assessment periods supporting same-grade comparisons.

Preliminary results suggest that same-age comparisons vary, indicating that repeaters might either lag behind their non-repeating counterparts or, optimistically, achieve comparable decoding levels. Conversely, same-grade comparisons suggest that Grade 1 repetition facilitates catching up in decoding skills to match or even surpass what non-repeaters attain prior to moving to the next grade. While short-term effects of Grade 1 repetition are potentially neutral or mildly advantageous, it's worth considering more efficient strategies for addressing educational gaps. Additionally, comprehensive analysis is needed to assess longer-term effects. Findings from this study also underscore that although early grade repetition is generally targeted at academically weaker students, it is misdirected in certain instances. Roughly 2-7% of repeaters in grades 1-3 across the examined samples from two reading studies in two South African provinces met grade-specific home language literacy benchmarks prior to progression decisions, while a half to a majority of progressing students did not. This highlights the need for improvements in uniform assessment standards to better guide repetition decisions at the school level.

In the absence of any causal studies on repetition effects in South Africa, this study contributes new evidence to inform debates about early grade retention or repetition policy in South Africa and highlights the need for alternative, systematic remediation programmes to address backlogs in early grade reading skills.

Author

• Gabrielle Wills, Stellenbosch University