GraphoGame: A Computer-Assisted Reading Acquisition Tool – An Enabling Support to Reading in the African Classroom

Introduction

Namibia is typical of many African countries where the inability of learners to read is still a major problem. This chapter introduces the reader to the reading situation that has been revealed through both national and international assessments in Namibia, specifically, and Sub-Saharan Africa, in general. The poor reading results are highlighted not as a learner problem, but as a socioeconomic issue that impacts effective teaching and learning. Based on the current economic climate, it will be many years before classes larger than 40 learners are resolved to more manageable sizes. In the meantime, many learners fail to learn to read and, consequently, fail to read to learn. This, in turn, could lead to poor academic performance and learners possibly dropping out of school later (Chinyoka, 2014; Nekongo-Nielsen et al., 2015). For most Africans, education may be the only route to avoid poverty and gain financial security. “According to UNESCO, if all students in low-income countries had just basic reading skills (nothing else), an estimated 171 million people could escape extreme poverty” (Giovetti, 2020).

This chapter examines an alternative to the more unlikely scenario of employing more teachers and reducing class sizes as a possible measure that could lead to initial reading acquisition. It investigates the effectiveness of a digital reading tool, called GraphoGame, and discusses the origin of GraphoGame and its nature as an adaptive tool for reading instruction. It reviews studies that were conducted globally with GraphoGame and investigates GraphoGame Afrikaans as a possible reading acquisition support tool for Namibia and other African countries, such as South Africa, where Afrikaans is offered as a medium of instruction. The use of GraphoGame is discussed against Vygotsky’s theory of proximal development and scaffolded learning as a dynamic, computer-assisted, adaptive, intervention tool that could play a role in mimicking the scaffolding a learner may need in reading acquisition.

The main focus of the chapter is a detailed presentation of a study conducted in Namibia in a setting where all the learners were from previously disadvantaged communities. They were taught through the medium of Afrikaans, which was the home language of the majority of the learners. The background to the study will briefly examine the history of Afrikaans that was foisted upon Namibians as part of the apartheid ideology of the then South African government. As a result, Afrikaans became the lingua franca of the Namibian people until Namibia’s political independence from South Africa.

The research methodology presents the research design, the participants of the study, the measures to assess the learners in pre-and post-tests, and the procedures utilized in the study. This section describes how GraphoGame Afrikaans was developed and piloted. The study set out to prove that GraphoGame Afrikaans improved the reading skills of Grade 1 learners. The results of the study also demonstrate how GraphoGame affected reading skills development in a relatively short time. The findings, furthermore, indicate that GraphoGame could be utilized effectively in a regular classroom in Namibian schools, with very little need for teacher input, except for the monitoring of the process of play. GraphoGame takes into consideration the individual levels of the players by presenting them with 20% of the letters or words with which they are struggling, as well as 80% of those letters or words with which they are comfortable. Thus, the learning opportunities are scaffolded with a high rate of success that ensures that there is a high probability that the learner will continue the engagement.

In conclusion, the chapter discusses how GraphoGame can be utilized in large classes as a teaching and learning tool. The ease of downloading and employing GraphoGame is elaborated. Thus, this chapter examines the viability of utilizing a computer-assisted tool that supports reading acquisition in typical African countries comprising large classes.