Loei
Published on April 4, 2011
Regular practice in reading and writing, mixed with special language
classes, helps youngsters be fluent in their mother tongue
Tens of thousands of Thai students are unable to read their mother tongue.
To Wijittra Busaba, a teacher at the Baan Nong Yasai School in Loei province,
the basic literacy problem was a challenge.
"With the question 'Why can't they read Thai in my mind?', I promised myself
not to ignore and let them pass the primary level without helping them
improve their weak reading skills," she said.
This helped Wijittra come up with ideas to seriously strengthen her students'
reading skills.
Close to 37,000 out of 500,000 Prathom 3 students (third graders) could not
pass reading criteria, according to a survey of the 2009 academic year by the
Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec). Also, around 94,000 of the
target group had poor writing skills.
Over the past five years, Wijittra has created practice books for reading Thai
by herself with varying levels of difficulty for students at each level.
Every Tuesday morning from 8.30am-8.55am, all Prathom 1-6 students have
to read out words in the books with various difficulty levels suitable for each
level. Then they practice reading the same lessons they do in the morning
after class, from 3pm-4pm. And on Wednesday mornings they have to write
what they read on Tuesday. Parents are told to assist the students when they
practise reading at home as well.
Wijittra said she adopted audio-lingual theories, multi-sensory approaches,
phonetics approaches, whole-word approaches and language-experience
approaches. Continuous practice was the key to success.
"We've done this every week during school opening time over the past six
years. In the 2010 academic year, 100 per cent of our Prathom 2 students
were able to read and write words or contents in my practice books. Ninety-
five per cent of those could read excellently and fluently and another five per
cent could read well," Wijittra said.
"In the overall school - when we evaluated all of the trained students - we
found that only 6 per cent of them were unable to read fluently, and this was
because they had health problems.
"Born as Thais, children have to be able to read and write in Thai," she said.
But reading and writing improvement is not enough. In addition to work with
the Thai language, the school also has its students practise their English and
thinking skills through different activities in the morning on other days, such
as spelling vocabularies, "funny bingo" and easy dictation.
Students who can read fluently are encouraged to volunteer as mentors for
students with learning disabilities (LD), assisting them to practise reading.
Supansa Thepkam, 12, a Prathom 6 student who is among volunteer students
assisting LD students, said she used to be one who could not read fluently
but after the continuous reading and writing practice with Wijittra her
performance was better.
"When I had problems with reading, I did not want to read aloud. My parents
scolded me for being unable to read. Now, I can read. They see my reading
development and studying is more enjoyable for me. Moreover, I can help
LD students to improve their reading. I like writing the Thai language and
speaking out in English-language activities," she said.
Wijittra's initiative has spread to 12 schools nearby. Some schools in the
North and Northeast have learned her techniques.
Kittisak Phalee, the school's director, said it would continue to adjust and
improve activities of reading and writing training.
Obec's deputy secretary-general Chaipreuk Sereerak and the media paid a
visit to the school earlier this month.
Chaipreuk said that as reading and writing literacy was a main policy of Obec
and the school had a good model, which teachers had created by working
together continuously, Obec plans to share its successful techniques with
other schools.
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