After many educational reforms over the past 2 decades, South Africa is still 1 of the lowest performing countries in terms of literacy outcomes. Despite an increased access to early childhood education programmes, more than half of Grade R learners will enter Grade 1 without the required skills to master reading. Clearly, systemic interventions are not working. Against this background, a family literacy programme was launched with the aim to improve home-school partnerships, build capacity for teachers to work with parents and to provide parents with the information and support they need to strengthen literacy learning in the home. The study reported on here was based on the theoretical framework of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory as well as Fullan’s theory of action as a theory of change. An action research design and qualitative techniques of data collection were used for programme implementation, but the study was planned and evaluated against Fullan’s theory of change. The Wordworks Home-School Partnerships programme was selected for implementation and a children’s component was designed to accommodate the young children of participating families. A multicultural, independent primary school situated in Pretoria, South Africa, was selected through a combination of purposeful and convenience sampling. Data were gathered from parents, children and teacher-facilitators during parallel sessions using multiple techniques and were analysed according to qualitative principles. The article concludes with a critical engagement between the anticipated findings of the study and the literature on theories of educational change to indicate how family literacy programmes can bring about improved literacy outcomes.

中文翻译：

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改变南非的识字成果：家校合作是缺失的一环吗？

经过过去 2 年的多次教育改革，南非在识字率方面仍然是表现最差的国家之一。尽管儿童早期教育计划的机会增加，但超过一半的 R 年级学习者将在没有掌握阅读所需技能的情况下进入 1 年级。显然，系统性干预不起作用。在此背景下，启动了一项家庭扫盲计划，旨在改善家校伙伴关系，培养教师与家长合作的能力，并为家长提供加强家庭扫盲学习所需的信息和支持。这里报道的研究是基于布朗芬布伦纳生态理论和富兰作为变化理论的行动理论的理论框架。一项行动研究设计和数据收集的定性技术被用于项目实施，但该研究是根据富兰的变革理论进行计划和评估的。Wordworks 家庭-学校合作计划被选中实施，并设计了一个儿童部分来容纳参与家庭的幼儿。位于南非比勒陀利亚的一所多元文化的独立小学是通过有目的性和便利性抽样相结合的方式选出的。在平行会议期间使用多种技术从父母、儿童和教师-辅导员那里收集数据，并根据定性原则进行分析。