Reading research has shown that variable relationships exist between measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension, depending on whether the language of the text is the reader's first language or an additional language. This paper explores this phenomenon, using reading assessment data for 2,000 Kenyan children in two or three languages: English, Kiswahili and one of two mother tongues, Dholuo or Gikuyu. The assessment data allowed us to compare reading and comprehension rates across languages. The data indicated that many children could read English words more easily than words in Kiswahili or their mother tongue; nevertheless, their reading comprehension was significantly lower in English than in Kiswahili, Dholuo or Gikuyu. The paper concludes that emphasising English reading fluency is an inefficient route to gaining reading comprehension skills because pupils are actually attaining minimal oral reading fluency in English and only modest comprehension skills in their own languages. The evidence also demonstrates that Kenya's national language policy of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in the early primary grades is consistently ignored in practice.

Learning to read and write is a psycholinguistic and social process. That is why mother-tongue speakers of minority African languages find learning to read in the language they speak is a qualitatively better learning experience than learning to read in a language they are unfamiliar with. However, reading methodologies used for teaching reading in sub-Saharan Africa are usually borrowed from other linguistic environments. Having been developed and tested on learners in the West, in European languages, these methodologies reflect their linguistic origins in a way that disadvantages Africans who attempt to use them for mother-tongue literacy learning. This paper argues for matching reading methodologies in Africa to the linguistic characteristics of the learners' languages. Particular language families have linguistic distinctives that need to be taken into consideration; orthographic distinctives of the various languages must also be considered for the most effective choice of literacy learning methods. These complexities are often ignored in the formal school environment, where the influence of European languages and traditional Western reading methods is strong. For those Africans who cannot read or write, literacy instruction in their mother tongue is immensely advantageous to the learning process.

In 1998, the adult literacy outlook in the semi-desert Tharaka district of Kenya was bleak. That was before mother-tongue education arrived on the scene, specifically targeting Tharaka-speaking children. A Tharaka mother-tongue programme inherently possessed three strategic assets: highly motivated educators, a captive audience of over 20 000 learners (in early primary schools alone) and 152 schools. The potential for bringing literacy to the schoolchildren became feasible. A noteworthy result of this programme is the impact it has had upon literacy for the Tharaka adult community. The author briefly outlines the plan she developed together with her Kenyan colleagues for teacher training and supervision, literacy materials, and implementation of the programme, including the chronological process of implementation from pilot programme through expansion to 152 schools in four grade levels. While teacher training is a means toward literacy development for children, it has additional rewards, because adult literacy is also a beneficiary of such a programme. Around 700 adults (highly regarded and influential in the community) are now learning not only how to read their mother tongue, but to write it as well.

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