National Literacy Day, Early Grade Reading Assessment

Yesterday was National Literacy Day. We attended the event here at NCERD. The day kicked off with standing up to say the National Pledge, then very formal speeches of welcome to an audience of ministry officials, head teachers etc. The Minister of Education talked about the importance of literacy in an age when children are tempted away from books towards watching TV and playing computer games. There were displays from bookshops, displays of learning materials for nursery, primary and secondary teachers. Then there were storytelling for groups of various age school children. It was good to have contact with some school children at last. There were groups of 10 children from each school with a teacher - they may have been selected on the basis of smartness and quietness (mainly girls). Their uniforms are extremely smart right to the colour of hairbands. There was barely a murmur while they wait half an hour for an activity to begin.
Today we had a presentation of the results of the Early Grade Reading Assessment which is a piece of research conducted by academics from the US. The results are appalling, particularly in children understanding how to sound out words and comprehend what is written. We believe that many teachers rely on old fashioned writing on the blackboard which the class copies down, without understanding the meaning. A programme of jolly phonics has been introduced to schools over the last couple of years, but the results are still poor, allegedly because training given to staff is not implemented. Why? Because many teachers have little training and motivation is low, because many schools are very isolated so support is difficult, because when teachers get experienced they go overseas to work so there is little continuity.
So all in all there are plenty of challenges here. My job is to set up a Special Needs Unit at NCERD to address the training needs of teachers in special schools, in SEN units attached to mainstream schools and of teachers who will be expected to include more special children in mainstream classes. My first step has to be a baseline of what is currently going on. There has been a lot written down about initiatives over the last couple of years, but how much have things actually changed? My first visit to schools will be on Friday, so that will help get my feet on the ground a bit more.
I have tried again to put a picture on here, but without success. I think the processing on this computer is not up to it. A couple of us are planning a trip on Saturday and Sunday to go North to a place called Charity to visit another VSO. It involves a speedboat ride on the Essequibo River, so I hope to have some good stories to tell after that. Cheers Kate
Cheers
Kate