PEN Sierra Leone has called for library reading hours to be reintroduced in the time table of primary schools in the country. This call was made in an advocacy forum in Freetown by the Secretary General of PEN, Nathaniel Pearce during the launching of the ‘Read, Children Read! Campaign in Freetown.
Pearce reiterated the importance of creating more interest in reading and writing so they could be inculcated in young people. He said a child with a reading habit learns more and is more likely to stay in school. He said they have collaborated with both local and international partners in many specific and varied projects during the period of empirical interventions to improve the reading capacity of pupils in schools in Sierra Leone.
On PEN’s work, Pearce said: “Our findings collected over the years indicate that even though reading may be taught in all subjects, it being the medium of exchange in education, it is not professionally handled at the early grade level. We have observed that Children cannot read effectively linking sounds or even understanding meaning of words and their collocation”.
He spoke about the challenges of choice facing children, brought about by use of android phones and their distractions as well as other toxic social practices.
He frowned on low reading level in the country, as contained in the feedbacks from numerous beneficiaries including teachers, pupils and community elders involved in the various project initiatives undertaken since 2005 by PEN. He spoke of socio-economic challenges being root causes of low level of reading and comprehension and retention of pupils in school especially the girl-child.
“The culminating effects of these challenges seem to be overburdened on especially Junior Secondary Schools teachers in our project sites.We have had a common request from the school administrations and our club facilitators in all fifty club member schools in the various regions and sites, encouraging PEN to engage and offer more reading skills to early grade reading institutions so that they are strong enough and ready to transit learners to face the expected high level of performance in secondary school education,” Pearce pointed out.
He said the requests and their implementation experience prompted PEN to undertake a random assessment of the early grade teaching and learning methods and facilities in a number of schools in the Western Urban and Western Rural areas of Freetown, where by comparison there are fewer challenges to learning.
He said recently 30 Primary schools were selected in the Western Urban Freetown and the Western Rural District in the conduction of this work and that Head Teachers of the selected schools were the targets for responding to the questionnaires sent out to the schools.
“Since our concern is the low level of reading and comprehension across our school system, the hypothetical question is, if proposing a closer engagement with reading as a subject in the school curriculum could enhance the culture of reading in order to improve the general outcome of education.
He said the objectives of these concerns were to explore the opportunities and reading facilities available in schools for improving and enhancing early grade reading.
Pearce said summary findings of the situational analysis report indicated that all respondents to the questionnaires indicated that teachers are available for teaching reading in school but that trained and qualified personnel are not enough.
The are no proper library system in the selected schools, with some having bookshelves or closed book-boxes as the only means pupils have to access to books especially supplementary readers.
Some of these schools, in fact consider other materials outside the prescribed reading list as a waste of time simply because all teaching is geared towards passing the NPSE examinations using the drill method. Because of this approach the children’s knowledge is limited, their vocabulary badly dented.
On the amount of time allotted to reading in school, the survey shows that many of these schools hold reading classes on two separate 30 minute periods a week.
On testing methodology for proficiency in reading, many use reading and comprehension tests and exams.
Another finding indicated difficulty in the identification of letters and production of sounds. Pronunciation is also a common challenge encountered by early grade readers.
All agreed that having reading as a subject and as a skill engagement on the time table is necessary which will make sense only with a complementary training of adequate staff to teach it.
All respondents agreed that in order to enhance reading as a subject in schools,there should be trained teachers, Librarians or Library Assistants in schools, provision of at least a library corner in schools, a wider variety of charts, and a variety of supplementary reading materials in schools.
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