Literacy Village urges need to improve students’ reading levels

The National Literacy Department in collaboration with the Department of Education, Georgetown, on Friday hosted a Literacy Village along Main Street, Georgetown, in continued efforts to improve the literacy levels of students countrywide.
The avenue was a rainbow of colours as schools displayed their creative and innovative best practices in the literacy department, with some of the activities including interactive games and puppet shows that incorporated elements of literacy.

During the opening ceremony, the Regional Literacy Coordinator for Georgetown, Tracy Ally, explained that the purpose of this initiative was to raise literacy awareness as she noted that literacy is not just a skill but a dynamic tool that helps people adapt to the ever-evolving world.
She further encouraged parents and teachers to provide the necessary support to ensure their children develop this skill.
Meanwhile, Principal Education Officer, Emmanuel Bridgewater explained that the Education Ministry has been working assiduously to improve the literacy levels of students across the country.

One such initiative, he noted, is the Literacy and Robotics programme, which was launched in several schools earlier this year through a collaboration between the National Department of Literacy and the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD).
This programme falls under the Ministry’s mandate to ensure that every child is a fluent reader by Grade Four while advancing the use of technology.
Its three-tier approach provides an intensive, fast-paced remedial intervention to fast-track the learners’ literacy skills as they begin at the basic level, move onto the intermediate level and culminate at the advanced level.
Within these levels, students exclusively learn reading, phonics, pronunciation and letter sounds, combined with a robotics component.
Thus far, the programme is being facilitated within Enterprise Primary School in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) along with Den Amstel Primary School, Kawall Primary School, La Retraite Primary School and Blankenburg Primary School in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara).
In September, a number of Grade Four teachers at pilot schools in Regions Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) and Three participated in the first robotics training workshop to build their capacity and enable them to become more familiarised with the robotics kit.
Armed with their new knowledge and expertise, the participating teachers are expected to serve as resource guides in their respective schools.
Similar workshops are to be held in Lethem, Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and Linden, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) as well.
During the recent commissioning of Haslington Nursery School in East Coast Demerara (ECD), Education Minister Priya Manickchand noted that this is a revolutionary programme but teachers are still required to work alongside students to ensure they are consistently reading at their grade level.
This, she said, will set the foundation for children to be successful as they move through the school system.
“We can no longer be graduating children from nursery school who cannot read at an age-appropriate level because when they can’t, they go into primary school and you see it passing from grade to grade and then we reach Grade Six and we get scripts where the children can’t write a single word because they couldn’t read a single word,” Manickchand said. (G13)