Hazel wants reading teachers in every school

EDUCATION Minister Hazel Manning is insisting there should be a Master Teacher in Reading in every school, since it would be a strategic measure to bolster the instructional reading climate in classrooms. Speaking recently to teachers participating in a workshop for Master Teachers in Reading, at the Rudra-nath Capildeo Learning Resource Centre in Couva, the minister was confident that such a move would “drastically reduce and eventually nullify the effects of reading failure that pose a threat to the well-being of our national community, and maximise the possibility that ‘no child gets left behind.’”

She said efforts must be intensified at the primary school level to ensure that every child is provided with an adequate opportunity to acquire and master primary reading skills. She also emphasised that at the secondary school level, the intervention of Master Teachers in Reading “was indispensable to the remediation of reading difficulties that plague far too many of our students.” Manning also pointed out that by October of this year, Trinidad and Tobago would become full-fledged participants in the Centre of Educa-tion in Teacher Training (CETT) project, and as such, “we would have assumed equal responsibility in the drive to eradicate illiteracy from our region.”

The 115 teachers — 63 from primary and 19 from secondary schools who participated in the workshop, all earned certificates as Master Teachers in Reading. The workshop was facilitated by Dr Ival Melville-Myers, Coordinator of the Ministry of Education’s Centre of Education in Teacher Training and Dr Hyacinth McDowall, consultant. Similar workshops were held in Tobago and for school supervisors and principals.