Minister of Education and Youth, Maxine Henry-Wilson, reads to grade two students at the Clan Carthy Primary School in South East St. Andrew, yesterday. Her presentation was in observance of Read Across Jamaica Day. - IAN ALLEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
SECONDARY SCHOOLS islandwide will receive a boost in their literacy programmes with a new initiative from the Ministry of Education and Youth.
Maxine Henry-Wilson, Minister of Education and Youth, said yesterday that the ministry is currently developing a 'Reading Room' programme for secondary schools.
"Selected students will be put in small groups to do a competency check to bring them up to their grade level," Mrs. Henry-Wilson told The Gleaner at the Clan Carthy Primary School in South East St. Andrew. She said that, as concerns over literacy exist not only at the primary level but at the secondary level as well, new materials are being generated to eliminate the problem.
READING CHALLENGING
Mrs. Henry-Wilson, in observance of Read Across Jamaica Day, read to students in grades one and two at the school. She said reading is challenging among children and that one of the achievements of modern story books is the presence of identities in the stories that children can relate to.
"Stories also help to teach community responsibility which is in keeping with the new
curriculum to teach values through reading," the Education Minister said. She added that the Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (CETT) plays an important role.
Joyce Palmer, principal of Clan Carthy Primary School, said the CETT has helped with developing reading skills for children in grades one and two, but added that the programme has also benefited students in higher grades.
The CETT was started in 2002, as part of a US$20 million (J$1.3 billion) presidential initiative announced at the Quebec Summit of the Americas in April 2001.
Following the summit, three CETT offices in the Caribbean, the Andean region of South America, and Central America were established. The CETT programme was introduced in Jamaica in January 2004, and has designed numerous intervention programmes to deal with schools' reading deficiencies.
- Yahneake Sterling
