To prevent children from falling behind in the developmental sequence of reading, a shared vision of what reading success looks like is required. This paper provides the first benchmarks for early grade oral reading fluency that are necessary (albeit not sufficient) to read for meaning in three Nguni languages – isiZulu, isiXhosa and Siswati - belonging to the Southern Bantu family of African languages. In contrast with previous benchmarking methodologies, our approach is informed by a non-parametric analysis of longitudinal early grade reading assessment (EGRA) data, guided by reading development theory. The EGRA-type data used for this analysis is the largest compilation of data on early grade fluency in these languages, with comparative assessments for nearly 14,200 children. Analysing empirical regularities and reading trajectories, we identify a lower fluency threshold of 20 correct words per minute (cwpm) and an upper fluency benchmark of 35 cwpm for the early grades. These benchmarks contribute to guiding curriculum policy, provide specificity to improve tracking of literacy progress and address gaps in the literature on reading in African languages.

为了防止孩子在阅读的发展过程中落后，需要对阅读成功的状态有共同的看法。本文提供了早期（三年级）口语流利度的基准，这对于理解南班图语非洲语言家族的三种Nguni语言（isiZulu，isiXhosa和Siswati）的意义来说是必要的（尽管还不够）。与以前的基准测试方法相反，我们的方法是在阅读发展理论的指导下，通过对纵向早期阅读评估（EGRA）数据的非参数分析得出的。用于此分析的EGRA类型数据是这些语言中早期英语流利程度的最大数据汇编，并对近14,200名儿童进行了比较评估。分析经验规律和阅读轨迹，我们确定较低的流利度阈值（每分钟20个正确单词（cwpm））和较高的流利度基准（35 cwpm）（针对早期成绩）。这些基准有助于指导课程政策，提供专门性以改善对扫盲进程的跟踪，并解决非洲语言阅读文献中的空白。