Children's Own for basic schools
published: Saturday | June 11, 2005

Claudine Housen, Staff Reporter

WESTERN BUREAU:

AS A part of its continued commitment to increasing literacy and numeracy through its newspaper education programme, The Gleaner's Children's Own has expanded its readership to the basic school level.

This was disclosed at its fourth annual Children's Own Newspaper in Education Seminar in Montego Bay on Thursday. Thirty teachers from the parishes of Trelawny, St. James, Westmoreland and Hanover participated in workshops, which taught innovative ways of enhancing the school curricula using the Children's Own.

ENDORSING LITERACY

Prior to the expansion, the target audience for the Children's Own was ages 6-12. Now, children from ages 3-5 will be able to benefit from the widely used teaching tool.

Speaking to The Gleaner, Project Coordinator Norma Rochester, said that the newspaper in education team has met with more than 150 basic schools.

"The responses were very good," Ms. Rochester said. "(So far) we have ventured into basic schools in Kingston, Spanish Town and Portmore. The new thrust will go a long way in encouraging literacy and fun in early childhood education.

Citing the Children's Own success in making reading fun for primary and preparatory school students, Mrs. Madge Pottinger, circulation supervisor with special responsibility for the Children's Own, said that the expansion is a part of the newspaper's continued commitment to numeracy and literacy.

"We want to set the standard from the basic schools," said Mrs. Pottinger.

SETTING THE STANDARD

According to Children's Own Coordinator, Mrs. Jennifer Allen, the publication has already taken steps to enhance the paper and make it more user- friendly to children below the age of six. One area in which this is noticeable is in the placement of puzzles.

"For the past few weeks we have been running two pages of puzzles and connect-the-dots to provide added stimulation for the basic school children," Mrs. Allen said. " We have also started to feature basic schools because children like to see themselves."

Day one of the two-day seminar in Montego Bay, focused on the many uses of the Children's Own in the early education system ,while day two will focus on the uses of the Gleaner as a teaching tool in high schools before moving to Mandeville.

Uses of the Children's Own

Language skills ­

Identification of punctuation marks, direct and indirect speech, proper nouns among other parts of speech.

Writing skills ­

Especially for the Grade Six Achievement Test students who will need to be able to show proficiency in reading, writing and comprehension.

Early Childhood development ­ Children can identify colour, gender and feelings as depicted in the photographs in the publication.