Discussion sessions review the most important ways to enhance reading and writing skills and the challenges they face

The workshop, organized by the Ministry of Education and Technical Education under the title “Enhancing Reading and Writing Skills: A Short to Medium-Term Action Plan” in cooperation with the World Bank, witnessed a number of themes, sessions and discussions.

The workshop reviewed several sessions and discussions on enhancing reading and writing skills, including the topic “Building Bridges from Colloquial Arabic to Modern Standard Arabic,” during which a discussion session was held on using the common features and vocabulary of Standard Arabic and Colloquial Arabic.

The second session also addressed “Teaching and Learning to Acquire Effective Reading and Writing Skills (A Literature-Rich Environment),” adapting Arabic language teaching, its resources, and assessments to focus on a systematic phonological approach, with a focus on reading fluency and comprehension, where Dr. Mohamed Al-Morsi, Faculty of Education, Damietta University, reviewed a group Among his poems about the Arabic language, its beauty and eloquence.

In her speech on behalf of Shiraz Shakra, Head of the Education Department at UNICEF Egypt, Dr. Hanem Ahmed, an education specialist at the organization, reviewed the educational loss compensation program for the primary grades (Arabic reading and mathematics).

She explained that the progress achieved in reducing “learning poverty” is too slow to meet the aspirations of the Sustainable Development Goals, and at the current rate of improvement, until 2030, about 43% of children will still suffer from learning poverty.

Dr. Hanem Ahmed reviewed the objectives of the program to compensate for educational loss in Arabic reading and mathematics, which are identifying the main learning outcomes for the primary stage in reading, writing, and mathematics skills (from first to fifth grade), identifying the main areas in which educational loss occurred through measuring educational loss, and designing a program. Compensating educational loss in the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics, and providing professional development and training for teachers that focuses on using student data to carry out immediate interventions to stop and compensate for educational loss and fully implement the program in all targeted schools, noting that a pre/post evaluation was conducted with 6,000 students in the primary stage. From the second to the sixth grade in order to explore the results of the program, in the governorates of Giza, Qalyubia, Sharqia, Alexandria, Damietta, and Assiut.

She explained that the general results showed statistically significant differences in students’ performance according to the student’s gender, governorate, and type of school in the various assessments.

Dr. Hanem Ahmed reviewed the recommendations, which included facilitating access to the materials by printing the program guide and distributing it to teachers, and also completing its participation through USB devices, or uploading to UNICEF’s learning portal platform or any available platform, and integrating guidance and training throughout the program implementation period, in addition to To professional development training for teachers.

In her speech, Dr. Suhair Al-Sokari, Head of the National Foundation for Developing Children’s Intelligence in Egypt, expressed her happiness with this workshop, noting that the Foundation has embraced some children from the age of 4 to 6 years to implement the “Contemporary Book” curriculum to teach them Arabic, English, French, and Chinese as the language of the future, as well as the hieroglyphic language. .

For her part, Dr. Nashwa Al-Hofy, writer and director of the Cultural Publishing Department at Nahdet Misr House, reviewed “identity and its relationship to language, its development, and its continuity,” explaining that defining language is a tool for understanding, acquiring knowledge, and developing thought, and through it, members of a single society communicate and increase their cohesion and ability to create, noting that Language is a social institution that varies among peoples, and carries a basic function, which is communication, to express ideas, desires, and emotions among the group that speaks it. It is a document of the achievement in ancient civilizations and the details of their rise, growth, and decline.

Dr. Nashwa Al-Hofy indicated that the treatment is to adopt a linguistic policy that views the official national language as a matter of identity, privacy, sovereignty, civilization and history linked to the comprehensive development of the homeland and nation, and to pay attention to Arabic language competitions and place it on the list of priorities for cultural work supported by the cultural elite.

The workshop witnessed a discussion of the topic of teaching practices to enhance initial reading and writing skills, as a session entitled “Arabic Language Teacher Preparation Programs” reviewed the alignment of pre-service and in-service teacher training programs to focus on effective methods of teaching the Arabic language with opportunities for extensive practical experience.

In this context, Dr. Hazem Rashid, Advisor for Pre-Service Programs in the Distinguished Teacher Initiative Program at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), reviewed, noting that the United States Agency for International Development provided a grant to develop primary school teacher preparation programs in Egyptian colleges of education, and this ambitious project is implemented by the Center Education Development Development (EDC) over a five-year period from 2022 to 2027, in cooperation with a group of international and local partners.

Dr. Hazem Rashid also reviewed the development of an Arabic language teacher preparation program to address literacy poverty in Egypt through several axes that address a new design for the preparation and practical education program and others related to faculty members.

A session entitled “Those who struggle with reading and early intervention” also discussed assessment, diagnosis, support for early interventions, and follow-up of those who struggle with reading.

The workshop addressed a third axis, which is “Enhancing reading and writing skills in the pre-school stage.” Within the framework of this axis, a discussion session was held under the title “Family and Community Awareness,” which dealt with encouraging families, society, and the private sector to understand and develop children’s reading and writing skills and put them in perspective. Priorities.

The workshop addressed a third axis, which is “Enhancing reading and writing skills in the pre-school stage.” Within the framework of this axis, a discussion session was held under the title “Family and Community Awareness,” which dealt with encouraging families, society, and the private sector to understand and develop children’s reading and writing skills and put them in perspective. Priorities.

Another session was also held under the title “Early exposure to classical Arabic and making learning the Arabic language attractive to children.” This session addressed child-centered learning, storytelling, reading for fun, and play-based learning.

In this context, Dr. Mohamed Fathi, Professor of Mass Communication at Helwan University, spoke about encouraging the importance of early exposure to classical Arabic and reviewed the major challenges of the Arabic language in the media, including the technology challenge, the curriculum challenge, the challenge of good teacher preparation, the grammar challenge, and the family challenge.