I wish to commend the minister of education, Andrew Holness, for his decision to acknowledge the importance of ensuring that students are literate before they sit the GSAT. However, I contend that intervention at the end of grade four is much too late. How do these illiterate children spend their time in grades two, three and four? For the most part they copy from the blackboard, letter by letter, notes on topics in subject areas from the syllabus for their grade. They are unable to read these notes, let alone understand or study them. Not surprisingly, these children become frustrated, lose confidence and eventually drop out of school.

Contrast this situation with one in which at the beginning of grade two, the children who cannot read are placed in a class with a teacher who concentrates on teaching reading and basic numeracy. In schools where this happens, all the children (with very few exceptions) are able to read at grade two level by the end of the year. Thereafter they are able to make sense of the content- loaded syllabuses of the subsequent grades.

Ideally, resources should be found to ensure that grade one children get the individual attention they require to ensure that they are reading at grade one level by the end of that year. When this does not happen, provision should be made for the teaching of reading in all subsequent grades. Nothing is more important.

- H. Williams, hwilliams4326@hotmail.com