Struggling students supported by charity and school

(CNS): With the help of a local literacy charity, its volunteers and the school’s teaching assistants, John Gray has introduced a specialist literacy programme to help struggling readers in Year 7. The programme has been underway since September and students have already shown improvement and responded well to the intervention, officials said. As part of the partnership to improve literacy standards among all kids the education service and LIFE – Literacy is for Everyone, an independent charity, have selected Levelled Literacy Intervention a supplementary small group intervention program that encapsulates expert teaching; quality levelled books; and good instructional design.

Despite the massive improvements in recent years of student’s year end exam results literacy standards in students are still a hot topic and the education system has come in for criticism from the private sector that it is not producing students that it can employ.
There are also a significant number of local students who have special needs but after some success in the primary school with the programme, LIFE has helped the education ministry to introduce the programme into John Gray for new students there.

“LIFE received a lot of positive feedback about LLI from primary school teachers last year,” said Woody Foster, Chairman of LIFE, as he added the group was pleased to bring it to JGHS.

The programme runs during the regular school day with the help of JGHS’s teaching assistants and is being spearheaded by the school’s Special EducationNeeds Coordinator Elliot Smith, and supported by the school’s principal, Lyneth Monteith. “We are delighted to partner with LIFE and grateful for the hard work of the two teaching assistants running the programme. The literacy initiative bodes well for literacy at JGHS,” said Monteith.
LIFE volunteers are using a Diagnostic Online Reading Assessment (DORA) to anonymously measure progress in student achievement. 

The charity has also contributed to literacy by organising groups of volunteers to support children in primary schools, purchasing literacy resources for government school use, partially funding the purchase of Levelled Literacy Intervention kits for government school use, and funding pilot projects as well as the Partners in Print programme across the system.
Tara Rivers the education minister said the commitment and collaboration with the e ministry has produced a partnership that benefits young Caymanian students and helps ensure the best education possible is provided in government schools.