Callendar: Parents need to play a greater role

Shirley CalLendar, Headteacher of the Cane End Government School, has said that she and her staff are doing their best to get the students of that institution enthused about the joys of reading, but there is one major challenge…little parental support.{{more}}

“If children can go home and read as much as they do in school, it will make the job of the teachers easier in the classroom,” Calendar opined.

Nevertheless, she says that she is generally pleased with the results thus far, since the inception of the ‘Hats off to Reading’ initiative three years ago.

Last Thursday, February 25, the students at that institution were given the opportunity to demonstrate some of the achievements.

Rouna Burke, Literacy Coordinator, said that an integrated approach has been adopted, including listening, speaking and writing.

Several measures have been implemented to get the students excited about reading, some of which include making books available to students arriving on the compound early in the morning and staging internal reading and spelling competitions.

She added that the school has taken on a position that no one group or individual was going to be left behind.

One of new initiatives is the inclusion of parents during story telling sessions in an effort to get them tuned into the habit of reading to their children at home.