By Natalia Canto | Executive Director
Even when we were unaware of it, we ended the school year with a celebration of books. Right before the world came to a stop, our Readers for the Future had been enthralled by our Reading Olympics.
During the last week of February they celebrated the grand opening of our month long event by singing their own hymn. Our Readers spent two weeks immersed into books and excited at the possibility of taking their newly met treasures home. Every Friday, students were eager to share the new adventures they had discovered while independently reading books to their family members with high school student volunteers.
In March, quarantine began but our team continued hard at work. At first we planned for the possibility of continuing services for our Readers for the Future, but we soon realized that less than half had internet access. In an effort to ensure that our students had access to books, we organized What’sApp chats and for the duration of the semester posted books in PDF format and designed corresponding activity sheets for them to continue practicing literacy skills in a fun way at home. 17% of parents remained active in the chat and expressed much gratitude towards our endeavour.
To continue fulfilling our mission of fostering effective literacy instruction for all students, especially those with a language based learning disability, our teachers set out to design, create and deliver continued education via webinars. At the core of MRC we believe that growing professionals is the most effective way to guarantee that student’s needs are met. A knowledgeable teacher who continues to learn helps all students flourish and translates into a greater impact. To that end a series of seven webinars on a variety of topics regarding literacy development (ex. dyslexia, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and writing) will be presented beginning May 22nd through June 26th. Our first two webinars have impacted a total of 155 educators on the island. We have been able to gather feedback from 60% of the participants of which 98% express that webinars have exceeded their expectations and that they would participate in additional professional development opportunities.
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