Over 13,000 primary school students for literacy, numeracy programme

About 13,500 selected students from Grades 2, 3 and 4 who gained less than 50 percent over the last three school terms will be engaged in a  one-month literacy and numeracy programme from  next Monday.

The Education Ministry will be facilitating this nationwide programme which is one of many  efforts towards helping students to improve their performance in literacy and numeracy, the Government Information Agency (GINA) reported yesterday.

The programme will be executed by 800 teachers, who have been trained to deliver the learning materials in a fun-filled manner to 13,500 selected students, GINA stated.

The size of the classes will be small to ensure that each student receives a high level of individual attention to enable their academic success.

Head of the National Literacy Unit, Norma Applewhaite, indicated that the literacy programme is very interactive and involves the use of art, drama, music and singing as learning tools.

This is meant to offer students a different experience when learning, apart from the usual ‘chalk and talk’ experience.

She said that the move  from the ‘chalk and talk’ method indicates that children can learn by engaging in  activities they like and teachers are encouraged to use different methods to facilitate learning.

Apart from this initiative, the Education Ministry is facilitating remedial programmes for those students who recently wrote the National Grade Six Assessment and secondary school students.

These literacy programmes are intended to facilitate the smooth transition from primary to secondary school and the improvement of academic performance in Mathematics and English, GINA concluded.