Improving reading skills

An expert from New Zealand has been brought in to share ways of boosting reading among young readers.

Sunshine Books expert partner Judy Stevenson provided free training for teachers in collaboration with the Samoa Stationery and Books, partnered with the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture.

“We have called Infants Supervisors (I.S.) to attend this training because it is them who teach years 1-3,” said Acting C.E.O. of Education Doreen Roebeck-Tuala.

“Those are the basic levels and those are the levels that we need to encourage and push students to be able to read at”, she said. So that when students reach higher levels they have already been taught and understand reading.

“It doesn’t matter if principals are here at this training because some schools don’t have I.S. at the moment so it’s okay as long as you learn something important from this.

“If you are here and you are the principal, we expect that when you go back you train your I.S. or your teachers for years 1-3 on what you will be learning from this training today.

One of the things that we are looking at is to have training just for principals, not necessarily on resources but their role as principals in terms of monitoring the literacy achievements of students, she said.

“You all know from our spellings competitions, we have students by year four they still don’t know how to read, they still can’t read and that’s a big concern in the ministry and that’s why we are doing this.”

“We are implementing these strategies so that we can work together to make sure that after four years of primary when they take the spelling test they can fully understand on what they are reading.”

“If the students know how to read they can also attain good achievement in other subjects,” said Mrs. Tuala.

“So we are fortunate to have this morning with us Judy Stevenson from Sunshine Books who the company has offered to provide this training free of charge for the ministry in collaboration with Samoa Stationery and Books.”

Ms. Stevenson works as an Education Consultant and International Training Manager at Wendy Pye, one of the world’s leading publishers of children’s books.

Some of her roles include: managing relationships with professional development trainers, overseeing Pacific Literacy Projects for Sunshine Books, writing teaching notes and activities for Sunshine and Award Reading.

Her role within the company Sunshine Books has taken her to countries such as Thailand, South Africa, Philippines, China, Fiji and now Samoa. She’s been to those countries to train teachers and trainers in the use of Sunshine Books using New Zealand’s best practice teaching methods.

Ms. Stevenson has taught for more than 20 years in primary schools. Managing Director of S.S.A.B. Fiti Leung Wai quoted Anderson and Others from the book of Becoming a Nation of Readers:

“Reading is a basic life skill it is a cornerstone for a child’s success in school and indeed throughout life, without the ability to read opportunities or personal fulfilments and job success inevitably will be lost.”

“As the C.E.O. of M.E.S.C. publicly stated, literacy in Samoa really needs improvement. S.S.A.B. was heeding that call by”, she said, in partnering with Sunshine Books to offer this training for free. S.S.A.B. believes in not only selling and promoting the books but more importantly in promoting customer awareness and proper training of some of its core educational resources such as Sunshine Readers, she said.

These Sunshine Readers are excellent resources because they have story lines that appeal to children including humour and loveable characters, said Mrs. Leung Wai Sunshine Books also provides support for teachers in the form of teachers’ guides and activities.