Face Shields When Teaching Phonics

For children in the lower levels, those in kindergarten and the infant division, the Ministry of Education is advising teachers to wear face shields in instances where certain subjects are being taught, including phonics and reading. 

Deborah Domingo, C.E.O., Ministry of Education

“As I said earlier, whatever the regulations say with regards to the use of face covering, that is what we will have to mandate.  But we are obviously concerned because particularly at the lower levels, at the early childhood levels the use of the mask may be an impediment.  So we are trying to address those issues, but for now we have to be consistent with what the health regulations say and that’s where we are right now. Some people were asking about face shields and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, even for the young ones, if they are not required to use masks and a parent would want them to use the shield, there should be absolutely no objection to that.”

Dr. Carol Babb, Chief Education Officer

“And it is recommended that teachers, early childhood teachers could wear face shields because they are teaching subjects like literacy and they have to do pronunciation of words, phonics and the children may need to look at their faces, to look at their mouths to see how the words are pronounced, then a face shield may be more suitable for the purpose.”