End automatic promotion of children at primary level to fix reading issues - Weir

 

Principal of St. Catherine-based Old Harbour High School, Linton Weir, is proposing that the automatic promotion of students at the primary level, regardless of their abilities to read and comprehend, should end if the country is serious about tackling the literacy crisis. 

 

Mr. Weir, who is also First Vice President of the Association of Principals and Vice Principals, says it should not be left to educators at the secondary level to fix issues that ought to be addressed at the early childhood and primary school levels. 

 

The Gleaner reported on Tuesday that more than 70 per cent of the roughly 220 grade 7 students at Pembroke Hall High are either unable to read or can only do so at the grade 3 level. 

 

Mr. Weir says the situation is disheartening because the problem exists in many secondary institutions. 

 

He says high school teachers have been trying to assist students with reading challenges, but they are limited by the lack of training. 

 

"Our teachers who are in the high schools, they are not trained to do reading primarily. We have what is called reading in the content area. So depending on the subject area, you are going to be providing that sort of an instruction to assist your students. At the primary level - and I am not putting the blame at any one set sector - but at the primary level, you would expect that our students leaving in the primary school coming to us in the secondary school that they would come prepared to read," he asserted.

 

Mr. Weir said concerns of spacing to accommodate students repeating grades in primary schools must be set aside if stakeholders in education are serious about dealing with the literacy crisis.

 

"I am sure individuals in the primary school are going to have their own challenges as it relates to spacing. But it is going to be very important for us to capture it at that level before our students move to the secondary level. In moving to the secondary level, they can become frustrated. And when they move to the secondary level and you try to put in place a reading programme, a lot of them resist because they think that they are so big and they don't want to participate in a reading programme. And if you have a pull-out programme, they resist as well. And I think it would be better for us to capture them at the primary level," he maintained.

 

Mr. Weir was speaking Wednesday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106. 

 

In April, the Ministry of Education announced that it will be instituting reading as a time-tabled subject at the primary level in light of the concerns about foundational literacy skills.

 

Meanwhile, Education Minister Dr. Dana Morris Dixon has called for the boards of primary schools to be proactive and work with the Ministry to improve literacy levels. 

 

Speaking Wednesday at a post-Cabinet media briefing, Dr. Morris Dixon, who is also the Information Minister, said the Education Ministry is aware of the gaps in literacy, but through intervention programmes in the primary schools, some progress has been made.

 

"We even had a new one which we started last year, which was for every student at grade 5 that was seen as underperforming at the level. We did diagnostic tests for 2,000 of them last summer. And this summer we're going to do it. So all of them that we find that are underperforming will now get a diagnostic test over the summer holiday. And so there are more interventions like that that we need to do. But we also have to work with the school leadership because we do have a board, we have a principal in all of these schools. And it's very important that we showcase the schools where they have a problem at grade 3 and you see by grade 6, it has been addressed. And what that means to me is that it can be done," she acknowledged.