US, Ghana strengthen reading among primary school students

From May 8 – 17, 2019, the Ghana Education Service and the American people, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Learning Project, distributed over 400,000 reading and teaching materials to 7,273 public primary schools in 100 districts in Ghana. 

Through this project, USAID partners with the Ministry of Education and its agencies to improve primary school students’ reading and to foster a culture of reading in primary schools.

USAID has supported the production and distribution of over 2.6 million early grade reading materials since 2017.

The materials reinforce student and teacher skills and enrich the public primary school classroom reading environment.

The materials include teacher guides, in-class workbooks for students, large books to support reading aloud in the classroom, alphabet flash cards, and additional story books in the Ministry of Education’s 11 approved Ghanaian languages of instruction.

Additionally, over 35,000 personnel from the Ministry of Education and its agencies have used their acquired skills and materials to help their students to become stronger readers and lifelong learners.

To track achievement, school head teachers and curriculum leads, circuit supervisors, district teacher support teams, and national core trainers learned how to collect data, coach teachers, and monitor the implementation of this reading initiative.

From May 20 – 30, 2019, the National Teaching Council and USAID will provide teachers, head teachers, and curriculum leads with refresher trainings on teaching reading using a systematic, phonics-based approach.  Training participants will review how to effectively use the teacher guides.

Since 2014, the Learning Project aims to support the Ghanaian Ministry of Education to improve reading performance of early grade learners in 7,273 public primary schools.

Source: 3news.com|Ghana