The impact of poor working memory skills on a Grade 2 learner’s written and oral literacy performance

Abstract

This research aims to examine the effects of poor working memory skills on a Grade 2 learner and explores how these difficulties impact on his performance in literacy. Working memory is a mental workspace that can be used flexibly to support everyday cognitive activities that need both processing and storage, such as comprehension, reasoning and learning (Alloway 2006:134). In a classroom situation, learners with poor working memory skills tend to forget lengthy instructions, miss out letters or words in sentences and fail to cope with simultaneous storage and processing demands (ibid:137). This research explores the theoretical framework applied to working memory according to Haywood (1993). Working memory will be defined and discussed, including the different components involved in working memory. An intervention programme focusing on supporting one learner experiencing working memory deficit in a literacy classroom environment will be discussed.