THE TEACHING OF READING IN BOTSWANA GOVERNMENT PRIMARY SCHOOLS

This study investigated how reading is taught in Botswana Government schools. The findings indicate that inadequate reading instruction by teachers, their inability to model and provide students with research-based proven strategies, lack of reading specialists/coaches in the primary schools, the use of only basal series as the primary texts for reading, were responsible for the presence of many struggling readers and non-readers in the Botswana Government Primary Schools. The study is important in that it will reacquaint teachers with some aspects of the reading process, adequate reading instruction and ability to model reading strategies in their classes. In this regard the Ministry of Education may have to employ reading couches in the primary schools. The paper also recommends, among other things, raising the status of reading by making it a school subject in its right so that it can be examined just like any other school subject. Keywords : primary, reading, instruction, model, strategies, specialists MARANG: Journal of Language and Literature Vol. 17 2007: pp. 13-28