With students battling to cope with the transition from high school to university, a team of lecturers at the Wellington Campus saw the opportunity to intervene.
Education lecturers Hannlie Dippenaar, Mpho Matthews and Cisca de Kock initiated the ‘Readers are Leaders’ programme, an innovative computer-based language learning initiative aimed at improving the reading and writing competency of first year Education students.
Piloted last year, Dippenaar recently presented initial findings of the intervention at the RITAL Conference, themed “Transitioning In and Transitioning Out: The Context of Transforming the HE landscape.”
Dippenaar says reading and comprehension skills are crucial to increasing students’ throughput and success rates.
“Inadequate academic language proficiency is a primary reason for student failure, especially in a multilingual context. Reading instruction is central in the improvement of comprehension and should be explored as part of the additional support provided to first year students,” says Dippenaar.
The intervention targets all first year students who are required to write a diagnostic test, and those who underperform are placed in the year-long tutor programme. Students access the programme at the computer laboratories on the campus and can work at their own pace during the course of the year. The initiative is a blended approach, and also sees fourth year Education students tutor first years.
Dippenaar says students are positive about the programme.
“Results show that this intervention addresses the academic language gap between secondary and tertiary education and enables at-risk students to experience success,” she says.
Dippenaar says further research will be conducted on the impact of the programme.
*The intervention was made possible, thanks to RITAL funding.
