Pilot programme promotes reading
We always hear about the nation’s declining literacy rate and the trend away from reading in favour of TV and video games. Today, News Five’s Marion Ali visited one school in the Belize District that’s actually doing something about it.
Marion Ali, Reporting
These displays depict the tools used in the lower division at Burrell Boom Methodist School as part of a literacy programme introduced there four years ago. The programme is being implemented by the Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training or C-CETT and currently involves the participation of six primary schools in the Belize District.
Denise Robateau, Reading Specialist, C-CETT
“The project is an intervention for students who are struggling; struggling readers and those students, a lot of them are placed at the at-risk level or non-mastery where they are performing below their grade levels and so the teachers work with these students with best practices in literacy. Some strategies are like read aloud, you can see classroom transformation, writing and we dispel a lot of myth about students in the lower grades that students can’t write for example. These students are writing from infant one actually and they read and they are enjoying it.”
According to the experts, the initiative was in direct response to the fact that Belizean students had shown a decline in reading proficiency.
Professor Stafford Griffith, Director, C-CETT
“In a number of communities in countries in the Caribbean it was noticed that students were not doing very well and one of the reasons why they were not doing very well at school is because of the difficulty that they experience in developing reading proficiency at the right level. We were able to get the assistance of the United States Agency for International Development, a U.S. government-funded agency, to invest significantly in helping us in the region to deal with this problem.”
But according to the project’s regional coordinator, Delroy Alleyne, recent reviews have shown that reading is now a popular subject in Belize.
Delroy Alleyne, Regional Project Coord., C-CETT
“We have seen very, very good performance here. In fact, I’m very pleased. Over the last two years we have seen tremendous improvement and I’m really very pleased with how Belize is performing. In fact, Belize is performing so well that sometime in September we are going to be showcasing Belize. We’re going to be bringing persons from elsewhere in the Caribbean to come and look at what’s happening in out schools here.”
And while we have made significant improvement, teachers say television continues to impact students.
Marion Ali
“For children who prefer the television over books, how you deal with them?”
Delroy Alleyne
“Well you don’t turn them off because sometimes they pick up things from the television but as the reading specialist will tell you that you can pick up negative things also from the TV. This is why it’s important for parents to monitor what the children watch. The environment is very important.”
The Centre is planning to introduce its reading programs in primary schools across the Caribbean. Marion Ali for News Five.
Tonight over thirty teachers who have excelled in their literacy course will be recognised at a ceremony in Belize City. Next month some of these teachers will again be awarded on the regional level by the U.S.A.I.D.
