Over the last decade, Bangladesh has made notable progress in expanding access to education. In a country of over 18 million primary school students, Bangladesh has achieved near universal net primary enrollment, with over 97.9% of children of primary school age enrolling in school. Bangladesh has also achieved gender parity in access to education, and 50.9% of all enrolled students were girls in 2016. Nonetheless, the quality of education in Bangladesh remains low. The most essential measure of quality in a school system is whether its students are learning the foundational skill for all future learning: reading. In Bangladesh, most children are not acquiring basic reading fluency. A US AID-funded assessment by Save the Children in spring 2018 found that 44% of students finish first grade unable to read their first word, and 27% of third grade students cannot read with comprehension. These poor learning outcomes contribute to grade repetition and dropout, and 20% of all students drop out before completing fifth grade. Poor literacy in the early grades also inhibits Bangladesh’s economic growth, as the pipeline of youth workers lack the foundational skills to be productive and engage in a knowledge-based economy.
A growing body of evidence suggests the learning crisis is, at its core, a teaching crisis. For students to learn, they need good teachers—but many education systems pay little attention to what teachers know, what they do in the classroom, and in some cases whether they even show up.
Data from Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics (BANBEIS) showed that the dropout rate 19.2% recorded in 2016 was just a single percentage point lower than that of 2015. The executive director of the Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE), Rasheda K Chowdhury, said there were socio-economic reasons for children dropping out of school. “Although primary education is free and the textbooks are provided by the government, a large number of children from ultra-poor areas – such as char areas, haor areas and the Hill Tracts – are barely enrolled in the public school system,” she said. “Things like poor teaching methods, incompetent untrained teachers, lack of encouragement has caused children to not continue their schooling.
Grow your Reader’s vision is for all children and youth to be learning and acquiring the Reading skills they need to be productive, fulfilled, and involved citizens and driver of their own life. Our focus is on helping teachers at all levels become more effective in facilitating learning, improving technology for learning, strengthening management of schools and systems, while ensuring learners of all ages—from preschool to adulthood—are equipped for success.
So that we have designed “Reading Secrets” the curriculum of teaching easy techniques to School beginning children on English reading.
The instructions in the curriculum are very easily applicable and self- driven. The students once explained can use the curriculum for themselves. All the instructions are sequential placed such that this helps in developing a child’s cognitive side appropriate for any age level. This curriculum helps in building a very good inbuilt system within the child, which in return assists him in developing his reading fluency automatically.
Teachers’ Reactions:
According to the teachers this is one of the best resource they have ever come across which is so easy to implement and a creative way to learn how to read unlike the usual conventional method used by the government schools in Bangladesh leading children to follow memorization method. However if there was a training on classroom management then it would have been easier for the teachers since this curriculum requires a good classroom management system. In addition, this curriculum would be more effective if there was an audio available.
Guardians’ Reactions:
This curriculum has given them an opportunity to observe their children’s keen interest in reading English. Their behavioral changes such as going to school regularly, reading books at home, teaching their siblings how to read etc. Their children spend more time and effort on developing their reading skills instead of loitering around here and there.
Observing the Students:
We were able to identify their cognitive development and their gradual growth in English reading. The use of reading trackers to justify their levels of reading skills makes it easier for the teachers to identify slow learners. Giving them more time to spend with them. Reading Secrets strategies makes students more and more self-competent in their approach therefore they feel empowered.
Grow Your Reader Foundation is an organization which works for ensuring quality education among children having own created curriculum, teachers’ training facilities and library stations.
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