Read Any Good Books Lately?

As a Literacy Education volunteer here in Guyana my primary responsibilities are running the school library and…you guessed it…teaching literacy skills. Literacy is still a prominent issue here in Guyana. Even by the time they reach sixth grade some students still struggle with identifying letters and sounds or barely read at a first grade level.

One way Guyana is working toward a higher literacy rate is by encouraging more teachers to receive proper training. As a rule, teachers here are not required to receive any formal training before or even when they first enter the teaching profession. Many begin teaching as young as seventeen or eighteen immediately after completing secondary school. Teachers who do receive training are expected to still teach full-time while attending the teaching college (a two-year program). This means that they have to miss at least one school day per week and leave early on other days in order to attend classes (often over an hour away), leaving their students without a classroom teacher. As there are no substitute teachers here, classes are then either combined or students are simply given work for the day and left mostly unsupervised.

In the hopes of improving literacy rates at #8 Primary School, I work with small groups of students in the library. We do a variety of literacy exercises focusing on letter and sound practice, blending sounds to form words, rhyming sounds and words, recognizing sight words and more. In addition to these lessons, I hold open library time every day during morning and lunch breaks. At those times students can come in to return and borrow books, read in the library, or engage in learning games.  During lessons and open library time, I also spend a lot of time reading to students, reading with students and listening to students read to me.
 
It is difficult to say whether or not my supplemental literacy lessons have the ability to actually improve overall literacy rates at my school. Even if they don’t, which is probable, my sincere hope is that I can at least help students to feel confident and motivated to become better readers and to instill in them a passion for books. I know that a few of my students are borrowing books they can’t actually read but they are still incredibly excited to explore them. Witnessing that kind of enthusiasm as the kids are buzzing around the library is really wonderful!

Check out this video to see all of the great things happening in our library: