Over the last few years, myself and the teachers at Wells of Joy noticed more and more that one of the greatest struggles for kids in Uganda is learning to read well. They have to learn their own language and English. All of the national exams are given in English, even at the earliest grades. Many times, the kids make poor scores on all subjects, including math, because they are poor readers.
In the months leading up to coming to the US last November, the head mistress asked me to find a reading program that could help the students because we didn't have anything strong in UG. After much research, I found a program that I really liked and was able to sign up for a 3 day training in Philadelphia.
When I returned to Uganda earlier this spring, I trained the teachers how to use the program and we implemented the beginning level course in the nursery class. It is better to start at the lower grades and work your way up, so we decided to do nursery and top class this year.
The teacher uses cards and visual materials to assist the kids in recognizing letters and sounds of the alphabet. They also have many activities and fun ways to learn all the basics of English. I spent a lot of time laminating and preparing the materials so that they'll last a long time.
In order to use these cards and materials, I had to figure out a way to display them - they've never seen a dry erase board or marker. Of course, chalk boards are not magnetic.
After a lot of brainstorming, Floyd and I came up with an idea. Then we ran it by Henry (the welder) to see if he thought it would work. We had some huge metal sheets left over from a previous project and I bought some square whole sections. Henry used these square whole sections to make a frame for the metal sheet.
Once it was framed, he and Floyd used concrete nails to hammer through the whole sections and mount the board on the wall. Then, we painted it with chalkboard paint.
HOORAY!!! It worked. We have a magnetic chalk board!!!
Just to give you a little perspective, the kids at school have not even seen an alphabet wall strip like this before and had no idea what a magnet was. They were amazed watching me put the alphabet cards on the magnetic board and then pull them off without any tape or leaving a mark. They loved seeing the "beautiful" materials. AND the teachers were very excited to have these new resources!
We look forward to seeing the results of a structured phonics/reading program for our youngest students.
In the months leading up to coming to the US last November, the head mistress asked me to find a reading program that could help the students because we didn't have anything strong in UG. After much research, I found a program that I really liked and was able to sign up for a 3 day training in Philadelphia.
When I returned to Uganda earlier this spring, I trained the teachers how to use the program and we implemented the beginning level course in the nursery class. It is better to start at the lower grades and work your way up, so we decided to do nursery and top class this year.
The teacher uses cards and visual materials to assist the kids in recognizing letters and sounds of the alphabet. They also have many activities and fun ways to learn all the basics of English. I spent a lot of time laminating and preparing the materials so that they'll last a long time.
In order to use these cards and materials, I had to figure out a way to display them - they've never seen a dry erase board or marker. Of course, chalk boards are not magnetic.
After a lot of brainstorming, Floyd and I came up with an idea. Then we ran it by Henry (the welder) to see if he thought it would work. We had some huge metal sheets left over from a previous project and I bought some square whole sections. Henry used these square whole sections to make a frame for the metal sheet.
Once it was framed, he and Floyd used concrete nails to hammer through the whole sections and mount the board on the wall. Then, we painted it with chalkboard paint.
HOORAY!!! It worked. We have a magnetic chalk board!!!
Just to give you a little perspective, the kids at school have not even seen an alphabet wall strip like this before and had no idea what a magnet was. They were amazed watching me put the alphabet cards on the magnetic board and then pull them off without any tape or leaving a mark. They loved seeing the "beautiful" materials. AND the teachers were very excited to have these new resources!
We look forward to seeing the results of a structured phonics/reading program for our youngest students.
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