Teacher Kenda Lake is the teacher in charge of remedial reading at the Orealia Kelly Primary School (OKPS). She, along with Teacher Dinah Lake, run the remedial reading programme in such a way as to get optimum reading capability from each student who requires their intervention. According to Primary School Education Officer, Mrs. Susan Smith, there are similar reading programmes in each of the six public primary schools.
However, The Anguillian chanced to speak with Teacher Kenda lately, and she did an excellent job of relating to us what remedial reading is all about – and what her work at the OKPS entails:
“Remedial reading involves the instructions that we give to students in need of our intervention, with the aim of increasing reading speed as well as comprehension. In this work, Teacher Dinah Lake and I help students who are deficient in reading abilities to overcome poor reading habits.”
The objective of remedial reading,” Teacher Kenda pointed out, “is to give additional help to students who, for one reason or another, have fallen behind the rest of the class. Theoretically, remedial reading is termed as a highly effective short-term intervention for teaching struggling students in both individualised and small group settings.”
Teacher Kenda said that she found the remedial reading programme to be very important in order to improve both reading fluency – and the comprehension, or understanding, of what is being read.
She went on to describe the five pillars of reading instruction that they use at the Orealia Kelly Primary: Phonemic Awareness; Phonics Instruction; Fluency Instruction; Vocabulary Instruction and Comprehension Instruction. She expressed that frequently the biggest challenge to the student comes with phonics instruction, where words are constructed to make blended sounds.
Speaking on behalf of Teacher Dinah and herself, Teacher Kenda said, they both found their work rewarding a great joy in being a ready aid to students, of any age, who struggle with their reading abilities.
