Help2read RF NPC

Our Mission: We work primarily in townships and informal settlements in the Western Cape (Winelands, Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain) and Gauteng (Diepsloot).  Our mission is to support nation-building through reading development and youth employment.

Our vision: Help2read brings to life its vision of empowered, literate and employed South Africans through its Literacy for Livelihoods Project.  This project emphasizes the ability to read and comprehend to become a functional and participatory member of our South African society. 

Our values: Adaptability, connection, excellence, fun, integrity, intentionality and transparency.

Elizabeth Pretorius is the Finance and M&E (Monitoring & Evaluation) Manager of Help2read.  She has been in this role at Help2read for 5 years.  Elizabeth has a financial management role which includes: bookkeeping, payroll, SARS submissions, payments, liaising with financial auditors, setting up budgets, cash flows and management accounts.  Her second role as M&E Manager is to assist in setting up monitoring and evaluation systems, collecting survey results, assessment data and analysis and reporting of impact results.  A additional role that she is taking up is website updates and fundraising.

Elizabeth Pretorius (Finance and M&E Manager) is supported by a Naazli Khan (Finance Assistant) who she is mentoring in all her roles and responsibilities.  In the next few months, Naazli (Finance Assistant) will be able to perform many of the tasks that falls under Elizabeth's portfolio at the moment.  This will free up additional time for a 12 week LEAP Project sprint.  Help2read is also moving onto the Wellbi platform for data capturing in 2024.  At mid-year the Wellbi system will be well set-up and lessen the admin load of the entire Help2read staff component.

Hilre Papier (Winelands Programme Coordinator) has been with Help2read since March 2020 and has been involved in running all Help2read programmes.  Hilre is a valuable team member who manages the Literacy Tutors and ensures the Help2read programme runs smoothly.

Help2read equips youth in townships with work readiness skills, by employing them to assist Primary School learners with reading support.

Help2read has the dual purpose of addressing the lack of work readiness skills and relevant experience in unemployed young people living in disadvantaged and under-resourced township communities while simultaneously addressing the poor English literacy skills of Primary School children.  Two relevant national problems define the context withing which Help2read works in South Africa.

Approximately 3.7 million (36.1%) out of 10.2 million young people aged 15-24 were not in employment, education or training (NEET) in the first quarter of 2023.  

The South African youth, especially those between the ages of 19-25, face high unemployment rates and limited educational opportunities. The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (Stats SA, 2022) reported an increase in the number of unemployed persons, particularly youth. Many young adults lack the education and skills necessary to enter the job market, resulting in a high NEET (not in education, employment, or training) rate. According to Quarterly Labour Force Survey (Stats SA, 2022), The number of unemployed persons in South Africa increased by 132 000 to 8,0 million in the second quarter of 2022 compared to the previous quarter. The second quarter of 2022 saw the total number of unemployed youth (aged 15-34) increase by 2,0% (or 92,000) to 4,8 million from Q1:2022 (Stats SA, 2022). The young black South Africans between the age of 19-25, are affected, they are not highly educated and possess no skill or minimum skill to enter the job market. These young adults are unemployed and are unable to pursue further educational development. 

The South African youth not in education, employment or training (NEET) rate has been consistently over 30% and it has worsened over the past ten years. The young NEETs are a heterogeneous group that is predominantly female, black, slightly older youth (20-24), reside in urban areas, live in income poverty and have less than, or only, a matric or matric equivalent. The majority of young NEETs are unemployed (43.9% are searching for unemployed and 24.4% are discouraged job seekers) and just under a third (31.7%) are inactive (i.e., ‘disengaged’ from the labour market). A large proportion of searching unemployed NEETs are new entrants into the labour market and many of them have been looking for work for extended periods without success. There is a need for place-based targeted interventions to help different young NEETs successfully enter the labour market or re-engage in education and training activities (SALDRU, 2022)

The results of the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)  were released in South Africa on Tuesday, 16 May. There has been a righteous but not unexpected uproar regarding the 81% of Grade 4 learners incapable of reading with meaning in any of the official South African languages. help2read believes that the impact of the Covid era school closures and rotational system of learning is in no small part to blame for these catastrophic results. There is no easy way to undo the harm caused by these vital lost years, but our expertise at help2read ensures that we are well-poised to undo some of the damage.

help2read, a small NGO, works in no-fee paying government schools (most affected by large classes and lack of exciting reading resources). Since 2006 we have assisted over 30 000 Foundation Phase learners in 400 schools to improve their English literacy comprehension skills. Currently help2read has a presence in schools in Diepsloot, Gauteng; the Cape Winelands; Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain in the Western Cape.

help2read has adopted a unique approach to assisting learners. Young people, who fall within the Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) category, are trained to provide one-on-one support to learners twice a week.  help2read trainee literacy tutors are taught to focus on the building blocks necessary to read with meaning i.e. rich texts which incorporate phonics and phonetic awareness, sight words and fluency.

help2read measures learner impact through a variety of methods. We are proud to report our findings of the Early Grade Reading Assessment. We can say with certainty that our methodology is working. In 2022, help2read learners achieved an improvement of:

• 78 % in phonemic awareness/letter sound recognition
• 89% in word recognition 
• 88% in passage reading
• 42% in comprehension

In 2023, help2read learners achieved an improvement of:

• 83 % in phonemic awareness/letter sound recognition
• 83% in word recognition 
• 84% in passage reading
• 54% in comprehension

Parental involvement in education is important to help2read. In 2023, help2read engaged with over 1500 parents and strongly believes in extending the love of reading through being able to put a book in the hands of each parent. 

Focusing on empowering unemployed young people in South Africa by offering them contract employment opportunities to lead literacy support activities in local schools. This provides a pathway for participants to gain valuable work experience and receive a stipend, aiming to alleviate poverty and promote personal and professional development. The Program encompasses work readiness and professional skills training alongside weekly personal life skills training spanning at least ten months. Key areas covered include teamwork, communication, time management, financial literacy, decision-making, starting a nonprofit, job application and interview skills, preparing participants for future workforce integration or the initiation of community ventures.

help2read may be a small NGO, but makes a contribution to lowering the percentage of Grade 4 learners who are not able to read for meaning.

Help2read continuously seeks to find the best and most accurate way to show that one-on-one time spent with learners makes a difference in their ability to read, comprehend what they are reading, enjoy what they are reading and also to use their reading skills as tools to learn. After researching the options available to help2read, the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) was chosen as the instrument to measure the change in learner scores before and after the help2read intervention.

 The reasons why the EGRA is suitable for measuring impact are as follows:

• The EGRA is a diagnostic reading assessment that focuses on four key reading components viz. phonics and phonetic awareness, word recognition, passage reading and oral comprehension;
• The specific purpose of the EGRA is to establish easily-measurable criteria for tracking reading competency in Foundation Phase learners;
  
• The EGRA has been standardized for SA and piloted by the Department of Basic Education (DBE). The assessment is benchmarked by Grade and according to whether English as the Language of Learning and Teaching or English as the First Additional Language is being assessed;  
• Provincial Education Departments are implementing the EGRA as part of their Literacy Strategies;
• Unlike many other standardized literacy assessments, the EGRA does not need the assessor to be a registered Psychometrist or Educational Psychologist. The Literacy Tutors have been trained as assessors;
• The EGRA is an individual test and takes 15 minutes to administer. The EGRA is designed to be administered multiple times during the school year. 

As the EGRA is only standardized for the Foundation Phase. The Grade 5 and 6 learners, at some schools, were assessed on the EGRA but their scores are not benchmarked to a minimum requirement. The final EGRA scores were compared to baseline scores in order to measure improvement in learners’ reading ability.

The help2read LTs were trained on the EGRA during the first term. The EGRA was administered in the second term in May and again at the end of the third term, in October. Help2read can very proudly report that the help2read learners have made gains despite not being afforded the correct number of one-on-one sessions, due to classroom rotation of learners.   In addition to the administration of the EGRA, help2read obtained the learners results for Language of Learning and Teaching and First Additional Language (English) from their school reports. This was done in order to assess whether the help2read learners were making progress in class.   The third instrument used in the research was the attitude to reading questionnaire which the learners and the LTs completed at the beginning and the end of the help2read intervention.

In 2023 at Diepsloot Primary 4 1,130 parents from the Diepsloot community attended the parent workshop, held to equip parents in reading to their children.  The parent workshops have gained great popularity.  88% of parents rated in a survey conducted rated 4 or 5 out of 5 when asked the question ‘Do you think that the Help2read programme benefited your child / children (1being ‘No not at all and 5 ‘Yes, very much’. At the first EGRA (Early Grade Reading Assessment) 24% of learners could not recognize a single word and only 4% of learner could recognize over 35 words.  At the final EGRA assessment 71% of learners could recognize 1-35 words and 27% of learners could recognize over 35 words, within a 2 min time frame.  During term 1 only 21% of learners on the programme achieved class average / above for language of learning and at the end of term 4, 42% of learners assisted by Help2read achieved class average / above for language of learning.  In term 1 29% of learners achieved class average / above and in term 4 37% of learners on the programme achieved class average / above.  90% of learners on the Help2read programme progressed to the next grade.

 In 2022 at Diepsloot Primary 4, 85% of learners showed an improvement in letter recognition, 82% of learners showed an improvement in word recognition, 90% of learners showed an improvement in passage reading and 37% improved in comprehension.  In terms of Learner Attitude to Reading, 58% of learners found said I learn when I read ‘Yes’ and 42% said ‘Sometimes’, 0% said ‘No’.  This is compared to the 1st assessment where 13% of learners said ‘No’, 51% ‘Sometimes’ and 13% ‘No’.  36% of Grade 2 learners, 32% of Grade 3 learners and 43% of Grade 4 learners showed an improvement in Language of Learning for school results on the DBE1-7 scale.  In a survey Help2read conducted with youth, 87% of youth said they are clearer about their, 100% of youth reported that this year increased their readiness for work and 92% of youth said that their time at Help2read motivated them to study education. 

Help2read would like to strengthen the evidence base of our solution in the following ways:

• Help2read would like to have a control group of learners to prove that learners receiving one-on-one reading support are able to improve their reading ability in four key reading element after 10 months of receiving 30 min one-on-one reading support from Literacy Tutors, better than the learners not receiving reading support from Help2read.
• Help2read would also like to have a control group to prove that learners receiving one-on-one reading support are able to improve in their class grades more than the learners not part of the Help2read programme.  The class average can not be used as measure, since the learners receiving one-on-one reading support increases the class average.  The results for First Additional Language and Language of Learning is to be assessed.
• Help2read would like to have a control group of learners to prove that twice weekly reading support invention has a positive impact on a learner's attitude to reading compared to learners who are not part of the Help2read programme.
• Help2read would like to prove impact of reading support for learners who has been on the programme for multiple years.  At the moment analysis reports for learners are only viewed on a annual basis and not seen over a longer time period.
• Help2read would like to prove learners who receive one-on-one reading support do better in higher grades then their peers, as a result of receiving one-on-one reading support at a young age.
• Help2read would like to prove that youth who have spent 10 months in the Help2read are better equipped as a result of their time at Help2read to take up work and study opportunities.
• Help2read would like to prove that parent workshops equip the parents attending the workshops with the necessary skills that enable them to read to their children.  This will enable Help2read to proof that the programme is having a impact within the broader community.

1. How do you set up a control group and manage the data for the control group?

2. How do you measure impact of learners who have been on the Help2read programme for more than one year?

3. How do you prove that the Help2read programme has equipped the youth with job readiness skills after leaving the Help2read programme?

Foundational research

The foundational research could include a write up of the latest unemployment statistics of South Africa and the problem statement of youth unemployment.  Research can be done into the factors that limit youth in townships from accessing educational and professional opportunities. It could also include further research into the educational and reading levels of South African learners as well as the environmental factors that are limiting learners to read at required age-appropriate reading levels.

Formative research

Formative research could include interviews and doing questionnaires with the youth employed in the Help2read programme.  This could add a dept to the programme to better understand the context in which the youth find themselves and how their possibility for future employment can be improved.  A control group can also be implement for all assessments and results analyzed.  Existing data gathered over years of assessments can be used to report on learner improvement over various year of the Help2read programme running.

Summative research

Summative research could result in a report that can be shared with possible donors and the government, which will in turn improve Help2read's prospects of receiving funding and enlarging the Help2read programme and its impact in the lives of more unemployed youth and learners.

Help2read plans to use all outputs and include it in the Wellbi data management platform to track data on the same system as far as possible.  A control group will be put in place to prove improvement in learners reading level is as a direct results of the Help2read one-on-one reading support intervention.  Better reports will allow Help2read to gain stronger support from the communities that the programme serves.  The reports can also be used to share with relevant government departments to possibly attain government support for the Help2read programme.  Results gained from the study will also inform the programme and which changes need to be made in the programme to better support the learners and youth.  

Help2read's desired long-term outcomes would be that the data collection system and reports would attract more funding to the Help2read programme, to enable Help2read to expand its reach into more schools and communities.  The desired long-term outcome will also be to implement the lessons learnt form the LEAP project sprint into the project to deliver the most impactful programme to the community that is possible.