Reading to Learn South Africa focuses on improving literacy rates amongst learners, at any level, in any language and in any subject, through a comprehensive Teacher Development course.

Teachers are trained in helping learners to read for meaning, write meaningful texts and to gain content knowledge from text by implementing a series of strategies. The training includes both face-to-face training and follow-up support with classroom practise. A digital platform is in the pipeline.
Reading to Learn South Africa is part of a wider community and the methodology is used in Australia, Scandinavia, East Africa and South America, amongst others.

Originating in Australia in the late 1990s, Reading to Learn is a methodology which, when used regularly in classrooms, has been shown to improve learner achievement through enabling learners to read for information. Grounded in Genre theory, it is a text based methodology which can be used across grades, across the curriculum and in any language to enable learners to read for meaning, write meaningful texts and to gain content knowledge from text. It thus enables teachers to integrate the teaching of the content of texts with how to read them with comprehension and to write them effectively.

The methodology follows a six-step cycle, beginning with preparing for reading and ending with writing.

Through a series of carefully structured questions, learners are supported to find meaning in the text they are reading. The methodology provides a high level of support for learners, through scaffolding and affirmation. The teacher uses the texts which learners are required to read by the curriculum and thus addresses the issue of age appropriate reading materials. This also means that learners are able to unpack specific content required in school subjects and write texts to demonstrate their understanding.

The methodology can be adapted to any level and has been used from beginning readers who are still developing pre-reading skills, to tertiary students.

The methodology is used in a variety of different contexts in countries as far afield as Australia, Afghanistan, East Africa, Scandinavia, the UK, Malaysia and South America.

Reading to Learn South Africa is a Public Benefit Organization that offers Teacher Development courses. The methodology is taught to teachers across different grade levels, and to lecturers and staff in Tertiary institutions. We have recently begun to work with staff in other organisations, enabling, for example, social workers to interact with texts they use in youth work and to write comprehensive reports.

The training course is SACE accredited, enabling teachers who complete the course to obtain CPTD points.

RtLSA is currently working in KwaZulu Natal, Gauteng Province, Mpumalanga, Western Cape and Eastern Cape. We also have relationships with a number of different tertiary institutions, through research projects. We work with other NGOs and are beginning to develop collaborative projects with other organisations who operate in the literacy field. We are aligned with Reading to Learn in Australia, and work closely with the originators of the Reading to Learn methodology, Drs David Rose and Dr Jim Martin.