Early literacy teaching and learning in the foundation phase of rural schools in South Africa experience persistent challenges. In order to address some of these challenges, a national reading programme to improve literacy among rural learners was initiated by a non-governmental organisation. The article provides an overview of how teachers in selected Eastern Cape foundation classrooms use the reading programme to enhance literacy of the learners. The objectives of the article are to investigate how the reading project has been incorporated into the teachers’ teaching pedagogy and their perceptions as to how the reading programme has contributed to the school and community. Four purposively selected rural schools, each being part of the reading programme, served as research sites. Participants included eight teachers who used the reading supplement in their classroom. Qualitative data were gathered using semi-structured interviews with the teachers in each school. Through a process of thematic content analysis, the following themes emerged: (1) pedagogical challenges, (2) infrastructure and provisioning for literacy and (3) community engagement. The considerations for future reading programmes in rural areas include cost, availability of resources, training of teachers and practical aspects of the supplement, for example, font size and length of stories. These findings illustrate how the foundation teachers use the reading programme to enhance the literacy curriculum in schools situated in rural settings. The recommendation of the article is that the reading programme is useful and teachers should be encouraged to use the supplement reading activities in the foundation phase.

中文翻译：

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在基础阶段提高识字率的阅读项目：以东开普省为例

南非农村学校基础阶段的早期扫盲教学面临持续的挑战。为了应对其中一些挑战，一个非政府组织发起了一项旨在提高农村学习者识字率的国家阅读计划。本文提供了有关东开普基金会指定教室中的教师如何使用阅读计划来提高学习者素养的概述。本文的目的是研究阅读项目如何被纳入教师的教学法，以及他们对阅读项目如何为学校和社区做出贡献的看法。有研究目的的是四个有目的的乡村学校，每个乡村学校都是阅读计划的一部分。参加者包括八位老师，他们在课堂上使用阅读补充。通过与每所学校的老师进行半结构化访谈，收集了定性数据。通过主题内容分析的过程，出现了以下主题：（1）教学挑战，（2）基础设施和扫盲准备以及（3）社区参与。农村地区未来阅读计划的考虑因素包括成本，资源可用性，教师培训和补编的实际方面，例如字体大小和故事长度。这些发现说明了基础教师如何使用阅读计划来提高农村地区学校的识字课程。