LOCAL charity United Way of Jamaica has partnered with the Early Childhood Commission, the United Way of Greater Atlanta, and literary experts from the Rollins Center for Language and Literacy at the Atlanta Speech School, to launch a literacy intervention project dubbed ‘Read Right from the Start’.

The project, made possible through grant funding from the US Embassy, will improve the capacity of early childhood teachers in Jamaica to implement language and literacy strategies that will support children aged three to six years with the necessary foundation to read right from the start.

Speaking at the project’s sensitisation session earlier last week, Taneshia Stoney Dryden, newly appointed chief executive officer at United Way of Jamaica, said, “This type of project holds special significance for our organisation because it allows us to collaborate with and learn from field experts while we work to transform the lives of some of Jamaica’s most vulnerable — our children.”

Approximately 20 early childhood practitioners have been selected to participate in the initial training who will then later train an additional 150 early childhood teachers, spearheading the spread of the Read Right from the Start model across the island.

Representing the Early Childhood Commission at the session, Dr Tracey-Ann Morgan Smith, director of regulation and monitoring at the organisation, shared the commission’s enthusiasm for an opportunity to collaborate with partners in order to transform education in Jamaica.

“Partnerships must exist between local and international stakeholders; this transformation [of our literary learning spaces] starts with all of us. We will continue to work together to continue developing plans and implement strategies, identifying appropriate resources to foster our children’s language and literacy development.”

Grounded in extensive research into the science of literacy, the Read Right from the Start approach to bridging the language gap was developed by the Rollins Center and has been rolled out at the early childhood level in several states in the United States of America.

By treating the learning environment of young children as a reinforcing ecosystem, as well as utilising cutting edge resources and tools made available through the online Cox College Campus, participants in Read Right from the Start will enter the ranks of global educators, operating with the best practices established internationally to promote literacy.

Speaking at the launch event, Holly Wheeler, deputy public affairs officer at the US Embassy in Jamaica, stated that, “Projects like this help create an educated civil society ready to address and solve the challenges it faces. This project specifically focuses on capacity building for educators and multiplies the impact of literacy education.”

The project is slated to go up to June but its principles are expected to become a benchmark for early childhood education in time, indicating the immense vision driving the initiative. “By committing to the Read Right from the Start vision,” noted Stoney Dryden, “the United Way of Jamaica is also committing to a vision of our country where early childhood educators are empowered as our first line of defence in our classrooms, skilled at inspiring an entire generation to get curious about literacy.”