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The teaching of reading in primary classrooms in developing countries, particularly, the teaching of English reading to second-language pupils, receives very little attention in the literature. One notable study that highlighted the low standard of reading in developing countries claimed that the teaching of reading in these countries is in crisis (Williams, 1993). This can be attributed to teachers’ reliance on a rote memory approach to teaching reading. There is, however, very little research available on efforts that attempt to address this problem. This article emerged from a research study of an in-service programme in Namibia and it begins to address this gap. The programme, for mainly unqualified primary teachers, sought to develop teachers’ capacity to teach reading more effectively. It explored the usefulness of various Western strategies to teach reading, bearing the transfer issue in mind. The study highlighted the usefulness of an instructional structured reading lesson and explored the issue of prescription inherent in it. It also found that structured and bottom-up strategies were more effective than top-down strategies. However, the main lesson to be learned is that an eclectic approach to teaching reading, using strategies adapted to the realities within which teachers work, is useful in developing country contexts.

shortDOI: 10/fchgrn