Factors affecting student performance

I am convinced that all of our children, apart from those with severe learning challenges should be able to master the GFLT. However, we do have a complex set of inter-related issues plaguing our schools and in particular the teaching of reading. The following are some of the issues that seem to have a negative effect on the teaching of reading and the development of literacy skills in our children: the continued emphasis on the whole word approach to the teaching of reading almost to the exclusion of the phonics approach - we have research evidence to suggest that it is a combination of the whole word and phonics approach to reading that gives the best results; too many of our primary and early years classrooms are noisy spaces - too many blackboard partitions allow noise to permeate the space and create barriers to children hearing the sounds they are being taught; some teachers are still not able to teach the sounds of the letters of the alphabet - the sound for 'b' becomes 'bu' ; too few classrooms are text rich environments where reading is encouraged as a fun activity.I came across a little bit of evidence that needs further research  - in regard to teacher training and classroom practice - it appears that there is some descriptive co-relation between what the inspection reports - NEI -say about teachers' content area knowledge including ability to teach reading? and the description of students on their final TP by the external examiners' (JBTE Reports 2003-9) We often hear teachers and their teaching being blamed for poor student outcomes but if truth be told we have no systematic - system wide way of supporting new teachers and developing them from novice to expert teachers. It is therefore possible that the same 'mistakes' made during TP are or were never addressed over time - for many teachers. Could it be that this situation has now become systemic and chronic?There are solutions:Here is an example of something Shortwood did with children from 2 schools in adjoining neighbourhoods - we ran a reading programme for 6 weeks over 2 summers with different sets of children. The children were assessed and then we used teachers trained in the ABEKA system to teach the children to read. Children made fantastic improvement to the point where one child said to me: 'Ms when I came here I could not read, now I can read I feel like I could jump off the roof!' Of cousre I disabused her of the idea while congratulating her for achieving the standards she had reached. It is possible to get our children to achieve.

Another factor that should be considered when examining the performance of students on the Grade Four Literacy Test is the role that the Jamaican Creole language plays. Most children use this language as their dominant language and very few are able to code switch effectively. So in an environment where children are coming from homes where Jamaican Creole is the only language spoken and the language predominantly practiced at school, there is inevitably a challenge that most definitely impacts on negatively on their performance  on the Grade Fouur Literacy Test.

I have learnt from my experiences as a teacher that our children will improve in their reading performances if address some of their most basic needs/rights. The challenges of irregular attendance, malnutrition, lack of love and support from parents and family members and physical, mental and verbal abuse are only a few of the daily struggles faced by many of our students. There is need for a law enforcing compulsory attendance for all students. Resources must be found to enable our educators to conduct visits to the homes of our children who are underperforming. It needs to be more indepth than PATHE. We cannot afford to have students attending school for less than a quarter of the specified time and the reality is that this happens too often especially in our poorest, rural communities. If we truly want success, we must address these problems while we enforce the many strategies that been discussed today.