Background

South African learners do not acquire foundational literacy and numeracy by the end of Grade 3. There is mounting evidence from the international literature of a strong link between the skills that children enter school with and their later outcomes. Recognising this evidence, Roots & Shoots aims to measure children’s early skills as they enter school, and to follow them across time to understand the link between these early skills and later schooling outcomes. By collecting data on children as they first enter school and then following these same children over time, we can determine to what extent the patterns of performance seen in Grade 3 can be traced back to trends already there on the first day of school. The first three waves of the project collected data on more than 400 learners in the Western Cape in Grade R, 1 and 2. These same learners will be assessed again in Grade 3 in 2025.