The course is being funded by the Organization of American States.  During the course, facilitators from Dyslexia Action - formerly the Dyslexia Institute - in the UK will impart skills to teachers aimed at assessing students' proficiency in reading, spelling, and writing, and improving them.  They will also allot time every day for the teachers to demonstrate these skills in one-on-one interactions with children.

Wendy Goldup, the course director, says they concentrate on phonics work to teach individual sounds and letters as a foundation for constructing words and sentences.  

"The course materials are from the Dyslexia Institute in the UK," she told SKNIS during a demonstration of course materials.  "It's the Dyslexia Institute Literacy Program, which is based on the Orton Gillingham approach.  Orton Gillingham is multi-sensual, structured, cumulative work for children who are in a muddle with their literacy skills.  It's a two-part manual.  This is really to help them become better teachers to do this specialist teaching well, and this is the theory behind it."

Eleven teachers from St. Kitts and five from Nevis will work with students identified by some of them as not quite being at the learning level they should be. 

Heather Hotchin, learning support coordinator at the Curriculum Development Unit, is participating in the course.  She talked with SKNIS about the nine-year-old girl she's teaching.

"She's very enthusiastic, which is lovely," Hotchin said.  Initially, I was thinking, "Hmm, she seems to have a lot of skills, which she does have.  But once you start using this program, you start to recognize, "Ooh, there's a little gap here" or "There's a little gap there" and that's one of the important things when we're teaching reading, is to recognize where the gaps are. It's like building a house.  If you leave out a part of the foundation, then the house is going to be rocky, and the same things happen with reading.  So it was very interesting just to spot the little areas where she has weaknesses and know that we can see quite a big difference in just three weeks."

The Ministry of Education initially registered 16 students from ages five to 14, but two more joined the program, after expressing interest.  The youngest student is five-year-old Brittany Isles-Roberts.  This morning, Kathleen Hobson, a teacher at Beach Allen Primary School, had a one-on-one session with her.

~~Adz:Right~~"I will set back up the Alphabet up to E, and I want you to name the letter after A.  Name the letter after A.  Brittany: B. Teacher: Very Good.  Name the letter after D.  Brittany: E. Teacher: Very Good.  I want you to name the letter after C.  Brittany: D. Teacher: Very, very, very good."

After Wendy Goldup, the course director, and Jan Townend, the course tutor, leave the Federation in three weeks, the teachers will have five or six more sessions with students.  They will then submit their reports to be graded in the United Kingdom. 

The practical course is accredited at Level 4 - one step above A-level - by the Open College Network in the UK.