SUNDAY 7 APRIL 2019 – UWI TODAY
11
EDUCATION
Dr Paulson Skerrit is a Lecturer in Reading Education and Literacy Studies with the School of Education at UWI St Augustine.
Mem Fox, a famous author of children’s books said,
“the fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks
between a child, a book, and the person reading. It isn’t
achieved by the book alone, nor by the child alone, nor
by the adult who is reading aloud – it’s the relationship
winding between all three, bringing them together in
easy harmony.” Indeed, this holds true for children and
adults alike.
Really, for many people, experiencing a
read aloud is a
powerful literacy event – hence “World Read Aloud Day”.
Created by LitWorld, a nonprofit organisation
committed to encouraging self-empowerment and
changes in communities through literacy, World Read
AloudDay is celebrated in 173 countries around the globe.
Beginning on February 1, the faculty and students at the
School of Education (SOE), St Augustine Campus engaged
in different “read alouds” in commemoration of the day.
Reading aloud provides significant benefits to any
audience and it is especially beneficial to emergent,
developing and struggling readers. The sheer joy of being
read to is known to be the experience of audiences ranging
from unborn children to professionals with the highest
academic qualification.
When a text is read aloud successfully, it serves as a
model of fluent reading that also supports visualisation
and comprehension. Reading aloud is animated with
aspects of prosody such as modulation of pace, pitch and
power whilematching the expression of the characters and
emotions of the text. Readers also pay careful attention to
conveying any dialogue so that the individual character
traits are identified.
The ReadAloud sessions took place in and around the
SOE compound. Several lecturers jumped at the invitation
to have their students join. The audience of students,
faculty and staff, thoroughly enjoyed the event. Lecturers
shared that they learned a great deal from the experience.
The students of the Developing Literacy Abilities
course also held several read alouds using various genres.
One student read a piece that she wrote herself. Other
lecturers and their students, for example in the Diploma
in Education programme, were very creative in selecting
various genres and mediums for their read alouds. Ms
Murella Sambucharan-Mohammed’s foreign language
class held read alouds in Spanish, while projecting the
English on the board. The reading was accompanied
with music.
Lecturers in the Teaching of Mathematics Dr Sharon
Jaggernauth, Mrs Nalini Ramsawak and Dr Zhanna
Dedovets discussed the read aloud as an instructional
strategy in their classes. Lecturer in the Teaching of English
Dr Krishna Seunarinesingh’s class employed read alouds
with a poem to engage students with its key concepts.
During the lunch period, Dr Simone Primus,
Librarian at the SOE, and Mrs Petra Pierre-Robertson,
Documentalist, also set up a read aloud session in front
of the library. Pierre-Robertson read from her book,
Second Chances
that dealt with the abuse of women. The
interactive nature of the read aloud stimulated intense
discussion among the audience.
Good teachers are relentless in addressing literacy
in schools. Read alouds offer teachers a very motivating
way to teach many things at once – to arouse interest
in reading specific texts; promote wide reading; model
fluency (particularly the critical aspect of prosody);
provide vicarious experiences for students; and to make
connections between narrative and content. All are
encouraged to model this very important activity in
lectures and tutorials and urge their students to do the
same.
The SOE’s celebration of World Read Aloud Day
certainly achieved its designated purpose in empowering
both lecturers and students to engage in motivating read
alouds for advancing literacy and teaching in-service
teachers literacy strategies.
Mrs Pierre-Robertson reading from her book
Second Chances.
WorldRead
AloudDay 2019
School of Education comes
alive with the sound of reading
B Y D R P A U L S O N S K E R R I T
Dr Skerrit speaks to readers and listener
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
The sheer joy of being
read to is known to be the
experience of audiences
ranging from unborn
children to professionals
with the highest academic
qualification.
