Echo Dene students enhance reading and self-esteem
Derek Neary
Northern News Services
Fort Liard (Jan 19/01) - When something is difficult to overcome, sometimes it's easiest to break it down into small parts.
That's how students at Echo Dene school are learning to read at a higher level. Through the "Read America" program, which uses a phonemic or sound-based approach, students have been gradually piecing words together since October.
Grade 2/3 teacher Charlene Walsh has witnessed the progress. She said one of her students knew only eight letters in September, but now he's reading full sentences.
Yvonne McQuaid, program support teacher and co-ordinator of the literacy program, noted that the 64 students who are being coached progress at different rates, but they're all being exposed to the same four-level program. Each level contains about 140 different sounds.
All students took standardized tests to gage their levels and will continue to be tested to document their progress.
"They learn that letters are pictures of sounds," said McQuaid, who tutors one to three students at a time in half-hour blocks. "Once you know all the sounds then you can read anything."
Grade 3 student Jonathan Duntra demonstrated his improved reading ability. He ran his finger across the page of a workbook and read the words aloud, needing only occasional reinforcement. He received a great deal of praise from McQuaid for his achievement and he beamed with pride.
"What we've seen is that (students) are not only learning the sounds of the language, but this program gives them a lot of self-esteem... we've seen a noticeable difference in the students already," said McQuaid.
Three full-time positions are devoted strictly to the reading program and another 1.5 teacher's schedules were restructured to collaborate with the pilot project. Co-operation among the teachers has been most helpful, McQuaid said.
The community literacy project has a $142,000 budget this year, with $50,000 of that coming from Beaver Enterprises and another $50,000 from Purcell Energy. The remainder of the money is donated by regional agencies.
Principal Harry Kielly said the level of support from within the community has been outstanding. He's hoping that will continue as the project is planned to run over three years and will likely include a kindergarten and pre-school component and even a remedial math program in the future.
"We're looking for more ideas, new ideas... we don't have all the answers," Kielly said. "I feel it's the type of thing where we're going to see slow, gradual change."
Having taught in the NWT for a number of years, Kielly said the problems that inhibit learning here are no different than those in the south, although they do exist at a higher percentage.
"We've all heard the excuses, but the excuses are not going to go away... so I thought, 'Okay, why don't we try something different,'" he said. "We're getting results. That's the bottom line."
