The organisers of the Reading and Explanation Competition, which concluded yesterday in Berbice, have dubbed the inaugural event a success.
The competition was the brainchild of New Amsterdamer Eli Hazel, who felt that more needed to be done to improve the literacy of students. As a result, he collaborated with the Region Six Department of Education to run off the event which involved primary and secondary schools in the New Amsterdam – Canje Education District. The idea behind the competition was to encourage a love for reading and participants were urged to keep abreast
with current affairs and social issues.
“A lot of times you see very bright students, but they are at a disadvantage because they can’t read. And even if they can read, often they are unable to comprehend and understand what they have read,” Hazel said, while explaining what sparked the idea to organise such a competition.
Nine Primary Schools from Friends Village on the East Bank Berbice to Sandvoort West Canje were invited to participate. Those schools were: Friends, Edinburgh, Overwinning, St Therese’s, Lochaber, Sandvoort, New Amsterdam, All Saints, and St Aloysius. Of these schools, all except All Saints Primary participated. Six schools participated at the secondary level: Berbice High, Berbice Educational Institute, Vryman’s Erven Secondary, Tutorial Academy, New Amsterdam Secondary and Canje Secondary. Each participating school was required to send three representatives between ages 9 and 11 years for the primary category and ages 12 and 14 for the secondary category.
The competition had three rounds and each was held on a knock-out basis. Each participant was given a specific passage to read and was then quizzed on the said passage by the judges. They were judged based on the fluency of their reading, recognition and pronunciation of words and comprehension of the passages read.
“When Mr Hazel suggested this form of competition, I immediately jumped on it because our students need to be literate if they are to succeed in the world of work. That’s why we incorporated the questions and answers segment, to test their reasoning, deductive and evaluative skills,” said the region’s Literacy Advisor Simon Dainty, who coordinated the competition.
Tutorial Academy was the only school in the competition that managed to get its three representatives into the final. At the end of the competition, St. Aloysius’s Cindy Cossiah and New Amsterdam Primary’s Shaquana Goodluck tied in first position with 88.5 points each out of a possible total of 100. Faith Gajadhar came in third with 86.5 points; Reaz Dookoo of Friends Primary fourth and Alex Mohabir of St Therese’s Primary fifth.
The judges had an equally difficult task selecting the winners for the secondary level of the competition and in the end decided on a tie between Raveena Shiwprasad and Gaitry Rampersaud, both of Berbice High School. Berbice Educational Institute’s Chloe Chyla was adjudged third. Meanwhile, Overwinning Primary was rewarded for being the most improved school in the competition.
Trophies were presented to the top six finalists of both the primary and secondary categories.
