Moderators' Summary-Day 1
We thank everyone who participated in today's forum. We agree that there are a host of interrelated issues which impact student performance.The factors which you mentioned or implied included the identification of students with special educational needs, the nature of reading instuction (explicit teaching as opposed to the integrated approach), issues of motivation, assessment based instruction, the Jamaican language situation (two existing language systems) and parental involvement.The question of the specific characteristics of the one third of underperformers is definitely one we should reflect on.We look forward to your continued participation over the next two days. Every comment is significant in this forum. You may continue to post your comments on today's topic.Jennifer, Maureen and NoveletteUSAID/Jamaica Basic Education Project
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Recently Overheard
Hello Everyone,I have been following all the postings. Quite interesting the wide and varied areas for consideration.
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Comments (12)
Did you get the link
Did you get the link I sent with studies
differentiating instruction
It is quite evident that how reading is taught is not helping our students to read and especially to read fluently. I worked at a preparatory school during the 90's and great emphasis was placed on reading. Students were diagnosed then placed into reading levels and instructed accordingly. The result, a school with its students reading and as they were motivated by the teachers at their levels. Self worth and self esteem were boosted and students did not have to feel embarrassed in class.As Principal, I have instituted differentiated instructions in mathematics and reading at the Grades 3 and 4 levels. This was initiated with staff development activities with a specialist in this area. At the end of our mid year examinations we are seeing great improvemnet in our students' performance and we are motivated more than ever to continue this intervention.Our parents have also noticed the improvement in their children's work and are happy and willing to assist.Although there is more some schools can do, we must also be aware of the negative impact social changes have had on our students. More babies are born to parents who abuse hard drugs both males and females so the genetic make up of our students today cannot be compared to that of students even 15 years ago. The poor parental practices also confuse our children since values taught at school are not necessarily the values taught at home. The number of parents who do not read at home has grown signifcantly as there is no time for less instant gratfying activities so children are not stimulated and there are no examples in the homes.However, with all these factors that affect students' performance schools will have to look at their own context and come up with strategies to improve general performance.
Language Issues in Literacy: Submitted by Janet Brown
CoP colleagues: I came across the notice below within recent communication from the international Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development. Some of the programme headings look extremely interesting, and they recalled the presentation in 2008 by Hubert Devonish and Karen Carpenter on the work of the UWI's Jamaica Linguistic Unit, which has lobbied long and hard for Jamaica to address the need to teach patois and IN patois in the earliest years of schooling WHILE concurrently teaching English as a second language, instead of assuming children whose mother tongue is Jamaican will just easily pick it up. I strongly believe that this debate needs to come front and centre in the discussions about under-performance in schools. The only defense I've heard when presented with the kind of evidence the work of the Linguistics Unit presented as well as the international stuff below, is that "we can't afford to print all the textbooks in patois"....and that seems to end the discussion. Much of the debates I've gotten into on this are fraught with stereotypic thinking, classism, and lack of understanding about how children acquire and retain language and understanding.Janet BrownInternational Conference on 'Language, Education and the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs)', November 9-11, 2010, BangkokOver 300 representatives of government and intergovernmental agencies, NGOs, academics and local civil society came together during a three-day forum to dialogue about the state of development of ethnolinguistic minorities, the relevance of local languages in achieving education and development goals, and the development of programs and policies that better reach these underserved groups.Sheldon Shaeffer chaired a plenary panel on ECD and Language including panelists Jessica Ball, Emily Vargas-Baron and others (these are CG members) - for more information and presentations etc,., see http://www.seameo.org/LanguageMDGConference2010/programme2.html http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/files/newsletter_2010.12_FINAL.pdf - Promoting gender equity through mother-tongue based bi/multilingual education, Jessica Ball
The successes
My understanding is that there have been successes in some primary schools, even in the inner-cities where all the negatives prevail. I think there were successes at Iris Gelley for example. Why is it that attempts are not made to implement these interventions elsewhere?
Many such efforts
Many such efforts have been documented in the Change from Within programme; not sure what is the current status of that programme, but it highlighted leadership and innovati
Change from Within Continues...
Change from Within continues, even though on a low key. Principals,staff and students are still working to transform their schools. Yes, Janet there is much that we can learn from each other.I am also hoping that as the NEI does the inspections the good practice that is found around the country will be shared with all schools - in the interest of improving what we do and the outcomes foe all our children.Elaine
Congratulations to
Congratulations to the innovative and caring efforts of Cynthia Grenyion, and her understanding of the constraints many well-meaning parents have in assisting their children with school-related tasks. There are other examples--for example, a principal who insists that she and all her staff visit the homes of the children in their care in order to understand their situations as well as to be more available for questions and support. There are other schools who use the PTA NOT just for fee-collection/fund-raising/castigating parents about children's behaviour, but for parenting educati
I agree with you
I agree with you Janet. Cynthia is doing a wonderful job. The P.T. A can be used as a medium to educate parents on ways to help their children. Generally, parents are interested in seeing their children learn. When this kind of home-school partnership is developed we will see the benefit (parents taking more interest in their children's education and children participating more actively in their learning). The teacher's work will become more fulfilling. Maureen
Parental Involvement
Parental Involvement and literacy developmentGreat job Cynthia! I agree that we have a problem where parents cannot assist their children because they themselves are illiterate. However, I am reminded of cases like Ben Cars
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