An Interdependent Literacy Model to Assist with Critical Reading Comprehension in the English First Additional Language Classroom

Various attempts have been made to assist the multitude of South African learners who experience literacy challenges, particularly critical reading challenges, in the classroom. Although a number of critical literacy models that focus on reading literacy have been developed to alleviate the reading comprehension crisis in South Africa, poor reading comprehension continues to prevail among South African learners, as shown in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study reports. This article argues for a focus on critical reading comprehension in the classroom. Based on a review of the Four Resources Model of Critical Literacy and the Interdependent Model of Critical Literacy, the researchers propose a new model to the literacy debate, the Critical Reading Interdependent Literacy Model (CRILM), which is designed to be used at school level and is suitable to be used from Grade 4 and beyond. CRILM is based on an instruction and learning framework that promotes a participatory-interactive-interdependent relationship between educators, learners, the text, and the author. Through the text and author, learners will be able to initiate critical insight and societal knowledge development from within the English First Additional Language classroom. Centred on the educator, the learners, the text, and the author, as well as their relation to reality, this proposed new model hypothesises the interaction and interdependence of all the participants during the reading process for the successful development of classroom critical reading comprehension.