Hope for our children

I thought that this may be a fitting end to blogging at this time. I take this opportunity to thank all of my colleagues who responded to my posts. Thanks for your thought-provoking comments. When I look at this inspiring video and behold the beauty of God in creation, I can't help but think that it is the same God who also created man in His image. This means that in each of our students there is tremendous potential for if God could take his time and create such breathtaking sceneries, could you imagine what He can do in a person's life once the life has been surrendered to Him?

Let us pray for and with our students, encouraging them and letting them know that their God is a big God and that their problems dwarf in comparison. Yes, there is hope, colleagues, and as we venture forth, let us go confidently with God and helping each other along the way. All the best to all of you and our lecturers. God bless you.

A correlation between school violence and poor reading performance?

Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, in a Guardian newspaper article, "Fatherless and clueless", discussed the issue of violence in our nation's schools. He cited several examples of violence in many of our Secondary Schools. He penned a chilling statement talking about 'the creation of an entire generation of youths that will form the next wave of criminals. Have mercy! I hasten to add that this article was written before he became Attorney General. He therefore was blaming the then governnment for not taking decisive action to stem the tide of the violence.



Anyway, I don't want to engage in any political discourse. My interest as an educator is the implication for teaching. It is said that many of the incarcerated criminals are illiterate. As Remedial Reading Specialist, our responsibility is to do our utmost in the classrooms to excite our weak students and inspire them to pursue learning. They may not all go to university but they need to be functionally literate and they need to know that reading empowers them and enhances their life generally. If we really want to show them the relevance of reading, we can probably ask them if they wouldn't want to avoid a situation where their girlfriend/boyfriend writes a love letter and they can't even read it! As a Christian educator, this is where I believe that redemption and education are one. Helping a child to read has far-reaching consequences. It's not just preparing them for this life, by becoming caring, productive citizens but they should know how to unlock the treasure of God's word and prepare for eternity.

Dealing with dialect in our classrooms

Recently, I was reading a post from a blog "English with Jennifer- a blog for teachers". In it, she dealt with dialect in the classrooms of the developed countries where there is a real pot pourri of languages and nuances of the same language. As I read, I realized that she was addressing the challenge with different pronunciations and accents, especially when considering Americans and the British from different parts of the country. Jennifer is of the view that students should be made aware of the many differences in pronunciation. She gave an example. She pronounces 'cot' and 'caught' the same way. Obviously, she recognizes that in a classroom, the teacher must be consistent with whichever pronunciation the student is exposed to daily. Consistency is the key. The teacher must be aware of his/her accent and pronunciation of words. Tape recordings are to be used to expose students to other pronunciations or accents.





When I think of our local context, our situation is different. Our main concern is not accent but sentence structure. Consider this: Tobagonians say "Ah going home back." while Trinis say "Ah going back home." Then we have "The house big, big." for "The house is very big." Of course we know that we don't tell the students that they are speaking badly. We simply ask them to say it another or a different way. Our language is colourful and sometimes it's the best language to use in a given situation. However, we need to prepare our students to use the language that most of the world uses. After all, we do live in a global village. I am still grappling with the 'how' in using the vernacular in our classrooms. I wish that I could see a lesson plan. Maybe I should ask Dr. James (: I like a particular statement that is made in Jennifer's blog. It says that the ultimate goal is to be understood and not to adopt a certain accent. In our context, the ultimate goal is for our students to know when to use the dialect and when to use the standard English.

5 surefire strategies for developing fluency

In her article, found on the University of Phoenix website, Lisa Blau shares, what she terms, five

surefire strategies for developing fluency. They are:

1. model fluent reading


2. repeated readings in class


3. promote phrased reading


4. enlist tutors to help ou


5. reader's theatre

As a result of reading the literature and attending the Reading courses with Dr. Conrad, I readily identified with all except one which is 'promote phrased reading'. I don't think that I ever really thought about emphasizing the phrases. Of course it makes sense because we don't read individual words in a choppy, truncated manner. I can see the sense of highlighting phrases for the students and having them repeatedly say them smoothly so that when they are reading the passages, they would transfer that ability and it would go a long way to improve their fluency. For some students who may require more scaffolding, we can even use a marker, pencil etc. to divide, where appropriate, the passages into natural phrasal units.

In her article, Blau mentions that 40% of all fourth graders (nine-year olds) are disfluent. I wish we had statistics for our local context. In the absence of stats, we all know that the percentage is high among our Secondary School students. Thank God there are several strategies that we can employ to remedy this undesirable condition.

Have you heard of Audioblox?

This is a brain-training system created by one Dr. Jan Strydom. Recognizing that learning is a stratified process, this system seeks to automatize the foundational learning skills such as concentration, perception, memory (visual and auditory), logical thinking and imagination. The creators draw an analogy with football. They say that in order to be a footballer one has to learn certain skills like dribbling and passing. So in reading, so long as one can master the foundational skills then reading is possible. Having isolated the skill and provided activities for practice, opportunities are created for the students to apply these skills in reading scenarios.



On the website, there were video clippings of sessions with teachers using the Audioblox materials. It was very interesting. Among the many testimonials, there was one from a teacher of remedial students who praised its effectiveness with her students. We may not have access to the programme but I found the compilation of the cognitive foundational skills very useful. In my planning, I can seriously consider incorporating activities to strengthen those skills. For example, I would have many read - aloud sessions using books with vivid descriptions to develop and enrich their imaginations. I must also bear in mind that practice time is essential for mastery. Failure to develop some of these cognitive skills can jeopardize their learning.

Is our teaching of writing right on?

Is the traditional appoach to the teaching of writing really working for our students? Why are our students generally scoring poorly in Creative Writing in the SEA exams? We probably need to revisit this approach. Let's think about it. The approach is to give the students the same topic, give them a stipulated amount of time, collect their scripts, decorate their papers with red ink, give them a grade and return the scripts to them without much feedback. Sounds familiar. Mind you, I am not saying that ALL teachers use this method. There may be those who are au courant with the latest research and, therefore, their pedagogy reflects this.

There is much research coming out of America which strongly supports the process approach to writing which emphasizes content and not grammar and conventions. Students select their own topics, they brainstorm, they write a series of drafts, engaging in revising and editing (at this stage emphasis is on grammar and other conventions) and then finally publication. Collaboration with peers and teacher is encouraged and feedback is rich at every phase. The process is recursive. Donald H. Graves, considered the 'father' of the process approach says that this is ideal for students with learning disabilities because focus is on what they know and their self-esteem improves when others value their writing and give feedback. Quite frankly, I strongly believe that writing can improve students' reading, spelling and comprehension. Students have to re-read, they realize when words are omitted because the sentence does not make sense and they detect spelling errors sometimes. It is an approach, in my view, worth introducing into our classrooms.

Culham, R. 6+1 Traits of Writing. New York:Scholastic

Are we ready for Dr. Tim Gopeesingh?

In this Ramdass article, entitled Minister:Education System is Weak, it is reported that Education Minister Mr. Tim Gopeesingh laments the flaws and weaknesses inherent in our education system. He identifies administrative problems at head office and also problems within the schools. Among his concerns is the staggering number of children with serious disabilities compounded by the fact that there is an insufficient number of specialists to address their needs. Apparently, he has plans for his ministry to partner with the Tertiary Education Ministry to ensure that our schools are provided with specialists.

I am encouraged by this proposed step by the Minister which suggests that this programme would be considered highly. It means that as future reading specialists, we must be adequately prepared because there would, undoubtedly, be high expectations from us to perform 'miracles' and significantly impact on the present reading crisis. Thus far, we have been exposed to courses relevant to our professional development. Take, for example, the course on Assessment and Diagnosis. We are now equipped with the tools to correctly identify the reading difficulties of our students. This is quite an achievement because, I do believe, that many of our students fall through the cracks and fail to receive the needed attention because their weaknesses were not diagnosed properly and, therefore, adequate treatment was woefully lacking. Concerning the ICT course, its relevance in integration in reading instruction is unquestionable. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the importance of our favourite course, Fundamentals of Educational Research I, affectionately called Stats. It is time for more research to be conducted in the field of reading and, therefore, this course has provided the knowledge and skills necessary for such. So, yes, I believe that we will be ready for Dr. Gopeesingh when he calls upon us. All the best colleagues as we strive to empower our students to be productive citizens of our country.

Ramdass, A. Minister: Education System is Weak. Trinidad and Tobago Express website retrieved(2010-07-22)