The
THRASS synthetic phonics programme is
currently being used with remarkable success in
thousands of schools across
Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean and the
USA to teach children of all ages to read and spell. Now
children in Botswana and Swaziland are to be the latest to
benefit from this amazing programme.
If children are to develop life-long learning skills, it is
vital they acquire a good grounding in language skills at an
early age, as this is the platform on which all other
learning takes place. If they fail to grasp the fundamentals
of language when they are young, they will always be at a
huge disadvantage. The THRASS (Teaching Handwriting Reading
And Spelling Skills) synthetic phonics programme, pioneered
by British educational psychologist, Alan Davies,
has been welcomed as heralding the
start of a new era in the teaching of English in Africa,
where many are welcoming it as opening the door to major
educational and other opportunities across the region.
It is widely acknowledged
as having the potential to more than double the normal rate
of progress for reading and spelling in English and is
therefore ideally placed to provide those essential language
skills.
The
new THRASS SING-A-LONG resources use 44 songs that parents
and others can sing with children to explain the 44 sounds
(phonemes) and 120 main spelling choices (graphemes) of
English and are accompanied by MOVE-A-LONG WITH SING-A-LONG
workshops to give parents and
teachers the confidence to perform the songs
with children. The SING-A-LONG songs are tremendous
fun for both adults and children, as they all have wonderful
imaginative titles such as “The moon fell out of the sky”,
“A great big gorilla” and “You don’t get pandas in Africa”,
and really memorable tunes in different musical styles and
dance rhythms such as such as African Round, Blues,
Charleston, Hawaiian, Jazz, Ragtime and Reggae. SING-A-LONG
is already making a major impact, as both children and
adults just love singing the songs and performing the
actions to them, and it makes reading and spelling really
easy.
The first ever THRASS Accredited Certificate Course in
Swaziland took place recently and had a big impact on
delegates: “THRASS is an awesome programme. The interactive
media and SING-A-LONG makes it the most interesting and fun
programme I have ever come across.” “THRASS is a wonderful
system for any and every school to put into place.” “This is
a wonderful programme which will greatly assist our children
right from the beginning in a multi-sensory way.”
In Botswana, delegates attending the first ever MOVE-A-LONG
WITH SING-A-LONG workshop there were equally impressed:
“SING-A-LONG is a must for all classrooms.” “This will be a
super tool to use, especially with Reception classes where
there are children whose visual memory is weak.” “Fantastic
workshop; the children will find it a lot easier learning
through music and movement.” “SING-A-LONG really brings fun
to learning spellings.”
Whilst
in Swaziland, Alan Davies also gave a demonstration lesson
to pupils and staff at Thembalisha Preparatory School.
Senior teachers at the school were amazed just how quickly
the children picked up the key words of the THRASS programme
and became confident in using them. They thought THRASS was
absolutely wonderful and all agreed that it definitely had a
future at the school, in Swaziland and indeed anywhere. As
one of them said, “It just makes so much sense to put all
the sounds available in English on one chart and let
children learn them from the beginning.”
It is an
indication of the significance of THRASS that in South
Africa it is being sponsored by Absa Bank,
a member of the Barclays Group,
through the THRASS Absa TalkTogether Project. There,
over 5,000 teachers and student teachers have earned the
THRASS Accredited Certificate, with approximately 700 having
been sponsored by the TalkTogether Project and
Absa Bank intends to introduce THRASS to hundreds of
government schools during 2008 using the SING-A-LONG
resources. The
THRASS Accredited Certificate is already a compulsory module
for Foundation Phase student teachers at five South African
universities, namely, Witwatersrand, Pretoria, Cape
Peninsular University of Technology, Fort Hare and
KwaZulu-Natal.
In
Zimbabwe, World Links Zimbabwe is working with THRASS UK to
introduce THRASS to pilot schools using the SING-A-LONG
resources. The schools have received these and other THRASS
resources through the THRASS Absa TalkTogether Project, and
the children and staff will also be receiving training.
THRASS is also about to make a major impact in Namibia,
where the Government is rolling out its programme to
introduce THRASS in all schools, and
THRASS UK is looking to work with teacher training colleges
to provide an opportunity for Foundation Phase student
teachers to gain valuable teaching experience as it does in
South Africa.
In the
Caribbean, where THRASS is already used for both mainstream
children and children with special educational needs
(including dyslexia), and has already received extremely
favourable reviews, the Government of Barbados is seriously
considering implementing THRASS for all children aged three
to nine, following a programme of training for teachers and
Government officials earlier in the year.
As
teachers at Thembalisha Preparatory School agreed, there is
a future for THRASS anywhere, and it
is ideally placed to provide
essential language skills.
For a
videostream of children in Swaziland, South Africa, Barbados
and the UK having fun with SING-A-LONG, visit
www.thrass.co.uk/saljune08.htm
The THRASS extensive picture-based training website for
schools and parents with access to a wide range of resources
and support materials, and extensive evidence of the
widespread success of THRASS is at
www.thrass.co.uk/teaching.htm
For information about the THRASS SING-A-LONG Family Reading
Project, visit
www.thrass.co.uk/sing-a-long.htm
For more
information about the THRASS Absa TalkTogether Project,
visit
www.talktogether.co.za
and
www.thrass.co.uk/talktogether.htm
Issued by: THRASS UK News Media Centre
www.thrass.co.uk/nm.htm
Mike Meade, Media Director, +44 1829 741413 Mob: 07970 151
738
mikemeade@thrass.co.uk
Chris Griffiths, International Development, +30 266 203 1207
chrisgriffiths@thrass.co.uk
