Literacy crisis among inner-city students

THE EDITOR, Sir:

THE RESULTS of the Grade Four Literacy Test is out and we have seen the lingering problem of a high percentage of our students, mainly from inner-city communities, not numbered among those who have mastered.

There is the need for the ministry to recognise this problem and classify it as a crisis, so as to ensure a quick and comprehensive approach is taken to address the issue at hand.

Based on my assessment, as a teacher at an after-school programme in one of our inner-city communities, I am recommending the following:

1. More use of electronic teaching aids and hands-on experience at the early-childhood level to help students master the 17 skill areas needed to lay the foundation for literacy before they move on to primary education.

2. Accurate and sufficient diagnostic testing at the early-childhood level, so as to detect early deficiency in any of the skill areas, and a remedial plan to address the same during the summer and on evenings.

The 17 skills areas a child must master before the age of six in order to lay a solid foundation for numeracy and literacy are:

• Visual discrimination of objects
• Visual discrimination of persons
• Knowing shapes
• Knowing colours
• Learning numbers
• Pre-printing exercises,
• Printing lower case letters
• Printing capital letters
• The sound alphabet,
• Short and long vowel sounds
• Consonant blends,
• Reading sentences
• Reading sight words
• Beginning addition and subtraction,
• Addition sums to nine
• Subtraction answers to nine

Telling time and money recognition

I would like to suggest that the Grade Four Literacy problem has its root at the early-childhood stage. If we fail to address it at the root, we will only be tackling the problem in a reactive way.

At this stage, an annual diagnostic testing of the child is recommended from as early as age four, so as to ascertain the skill level in relation to the 17 skill areas.

I am, etc.,

Rohan Perry

Kingston 12