Teachers hold reading workshop

The rest of us usually envy teachers for their long summer vacations, but more and more teachers are using this time to improve their skills. A workshop concluded today at Wesley College on the subject area that lays the foundation for a child’s overall success in school: reading. As Arreini Palacio reports those who participated intend to share what they learned with others in the field.

For these teachers a part of their summer vacation will be sent on the other side of the classroom, in the pupils’ seat. The Emergent Reading Workshop, which has been taking place every summer for the past three years, is sponsored by the Methodist Mission. According to their instructor Kathy Harris, this year the teachers will be learning something different.

Kathy Harris, Instructor

“The objective of this year’s workshop is a leadership institute to prepare Belizean teachers who have taken part in the workshop for three years to go into their district to run a similar workshop for teachers in their districts and at their schools.”

Jacqueline Jones, Teacher, St. Luke Methodist

“We as teachers need to find strategies and other means of getting through to our children in reading because reading is used in all subject areas, and not just to read but to understand what they read.”

And the teachers agree that teaching students from infant one to standard one which is the emergent, or beginning reading stage, is one of the most important topics covered in the workshop. They also agree that taking what they learn to fellow teachers is just as important.

Josephine Palacio, Teacher, St. Peter Claver, P.G.

“With all the strategies that I have learned at the workshop, I take to my school and I tried to use all these strategies for the past two years. I went through the entire strategy for the entire infant school.”

Jacqueline Jones

“I think the workshop is really helping us and giving us a lot of activities that are child centered. And we find children taking part in activities and reading is really enjoyed and becomes something that they want to take part.”

Not only should the children get into the reading, the teachers believe that during the summer parents should get into reading along with their children. Arreini Palacio for News Five.

The teacher leaders from the Emergent Readers Workshop will be giving lessons on Monday in Belize City and will be in Dangriga on Tuesday and Punta Gorda Town on Wednesday.