UNDER the theme ‘Getting Involved in Your Child’s Literacy and Numeracy Learning’, parents of students at the Moneague Primary and Junior High School participated in a parenting workshop that introduced them to and educated them on the benefits that can be derived from the Enrichment Centre Initiative. The workshop was held on Wednesday, January 20 at the school in St Ann.

According to Enrichment Centre teacher Nadia Richards, “Through the workshop, parents saw the importance of working with their child towards improving their overall level of literacy.”

Richards is equipped, through an intensive three-month training programme, with strategies on how to identify and treat each child’s area of weakness and to manipulate the various literacy and numeracy software and hardware. The training was conducted by representatives of the three main streams of the Ministry of Education — Literacy, Numeracy and Special Education.

Principal Marcia Hinds added that the school was moved to seek the assistance of Digicel Foundation, as they were becoming concerned that the school’s literacy and numeracy seemed to have been slipping. “At present, the Grade Four literacy and numeracy rates are at 71 per cent and 51 per cent respectively. Now with the enrichment room, we are working to achieve 90 per cent in literacy and 75 per cent in numeracy in the Grade Four Assessment Test by the end of this year.”

During a presentation at the workshop by Dr Michele Meredith, enrichment centre co-ordinator for the education transformation projects stated, “The enrichment centre initiative is tailored to meet both the needs of under-achievers, reading below their grade levels, and over-achievers, who require more educational challenges that are not presented in the normal classroom context.”

“At Moneague Primary and Junior High, we seek to develop the whole person by encouraging each student to make wise personal choices; to accept the responsibility for his/her own actions; to live in harmony with the environment and to develop him/herself physically, socially and intellectually. The enrichment centre initiative will certainly assist them in a lot of these areas,” noted Principal Hinds.

Moneague’s enrichment room is one of 13 such facilities under the enrichment centre initiative that was refurbished and equipped with laptops, computers, literacy and numeracy software such as Hooked on Phonics, Early Success, Math Manipulative audio-visual headsets, TV and DVD players, among other equipment.