Monique Jackson-Reynolds | Literacy the root of great PEP achievements

How does literacy impact us as a nation and our value to the world at large?

Let’s break it down from the first national assessment a child will face that will impact his/her life as a Jamaican citizen - the Primary Exit Profile (PEP).

Even students in grade six who are reading at the grade-six level and above, stumble and make mistakes because they did not fully understand the instructions. This is not because the instruction was not structured correctly, but is reflected through the lack of analytic and inferential skills that the students are expected to use.

Children are not too young to be taught how to analyse. In fact, I remember analysing every day when I was in primary school.

There was a subject called mental ability and every day we were given puzzles, riddles, patterns, directional games and ‘common sense’ quizzes just to stimulate our brains to think critically.

It was my favourite subject. I always wondered why it was so easy, and there was no anxiety nor pressure when to I had to do those activities. It must have been through the way the content was delivered. Many real-life mini situations were cunningly hidden in the form of fun riddles, shape patterns and scenarios.

PEP is a series of assessments that has replaced the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT). It provides a profile of where the students are academically, their strengths and weaknesses, and their readiness for grade seven. PEP will assess students’ knowledge, in addition to placing increased emphasis on assessing 21st-century skills, including critical thinking and communication (Ministry of Education, 2018).

To me, it is really bringing back ‘mental ability’ in an integrated way, which I think is an excellent way to promote the development of an internationally marketable Jamaican citizen. Meaning, we should be able to produce citizens who can develop cutting-edge solutions to the social, financial, agricultural and overall economical growth of the country. Not to mention those who will be able to compete in the global market among students from countries like Finland, Barbados, Japan, Suriname, Dubai and Australia. These countries are well known for their stellar performance in innovative products and services.

I have been a literacy specialist for the past 15 years, working with five different public schools as master teacher in the USAID’s Literacy Projects and managing director of an academic assessment facility. My journey began with pulling small groups of students from grades four, five and six for literacy intervention sessions. I always used diagnostic tests to find out their reading levels, what they are motivated by, and do a chat session to hear what their goals are in life; what they want to be, places they want to go, and who they want to meet. All these preliminary activities helped me to understand their strengths, weaknesses, goals and aspirations.

I created a personal file for each student using the Individual Intervention Plan forms provided by the Ministry of Education’s Assessment Unit. Data-driven process and excellent record-keeping is key to suitable success.

I garnered years of experience working with students who previously failed the Grade Four Literacy Test once or several times. That test was used, until 2018, to determine if students were at a strong enough literacy level to be recommended to do the GSAT.

PEP is the new cumulative set of tests. However, it is not designed to be done all at once by the student, like the GSAT. The tests are set almost like modules; they are done at the end of each grade (four, five and six) with the accumulating percentages’ grand total by the last grade. Personally, I like that the content is now in sections for the information to be tested, not just by multiple-choice questions, but by curriculum-based tests, performance tasks and ability tests.

I think we have broadened our scope of assessment to give not only high academic achievers a chance to portray their depth of knowledge, but all students. You can imagine that I am passionate about the ‘all students’ aspect because the bulk of my students, over the years, were the ‘underachievers’ with literacy limitations. However, when those students excelled because their literacy skills and self-esteem were enhanced, there is no feeling to describe the pride and joy at a graduation or getting a WhatsApp from a grateful parent regarding outstanding progress.

I’m sure we can agree that poor literacy skills will most definitely be a great hindrance to passing any PEP test, even the maths segment. All questions and instructions are written and are expected to be read, interpreted, and activate a reasonable response with some validating evidence. Many questions or instructions not only require an answer, but some kind of explanation for presenting such an answer. This kind of assessment will surely prepare a student for problem-solving in the real world. It’s definitely not a guessing game.

So, within my line of duties regarding PEP preparations, I focused on ‘understanding the question or task instruction’. Observing the responses from the students and evaluating the benchmark and post-diagnostic tests led me to developing a new reading comprehension strategy.

It is a carefully designed combination of strategies amalgamated with analytic skills. I call it the ‘TAXI Strategy for Complete Comprehension’. If all student are able to apply this process to their engagement with the PEP requirements, they should definitely achieve way more than if they did not.

The ‘TAXI’ strategy is an interactive, building-block approach to facilitating the simultaneous use of strategies for phonics, word recognition, vocabulary and reading comprehension in order to gain full understanding of total text. It is a system formulated by a combination of effective reading comprehension strategies that require higher- order critical thinking which should yield in-depth analysis and engagement of textual information to facilitate complete understanding.

TAXI is an acronym for think, analyse, search (X) and investigate.

* Think about the text - Thinking is asking yourself questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? Many students really do not know how to focus their thinking. We are all thinking all the time. But what are we thinking about? The five ‘Ws’ and ‘H’ questions can guide students to think about the relevant aspects of the text in the question/instruction.

* Analyse by key words - This may seem simple but it will take decoding skills (to pronounce the words), vocabulary skills to generate meaning, and inferential skills to apply the relevant meaning based on the entire context.

* X marks the spot! - Search for clues to use for your response to the instruction. If you are asked ‘What?’, there should be things or concepts you are looking for.

If it is ‘How?’, you are looking for descriptions or a sequence. Highlight all bits of information you think is helpful to draft an excellent response.

* Investigate – After drafting a response, evaluate it. If it is a maths problem, try to work it backwards to see if what you have gets you back to the beginning. For informational text, find the sentence, phrase or word to validate your response. Formulate a reason for presenting that response based on one or more of these pieces of evidence from the text.

Teachers and parents can try to facilitate this approach with their students. Students can use a checklist to evaluate themselves while they use the strategy. I am urging everyone to heighten the momentum for literacy development. We may have made good strides with being functional literate - able to read at a very basic level - but to master PEP, Caribbean Examinations Council tests, university, or become national entrepreneurs and global innovators, we need to promote advanced literacy development from all angles to secure a great future for our children.

Monique Jackson-Reynolds, MEd, is a lecturer of language, literacy & literature at UWI/Mico; a technology integration literacy specialist; a professional development consultant; and a parent coach.