Reading the Way to a Brighter Tomorrow
Discover how an inspiring teacher from Dominican Republic helps her students embrace reading
In October 2019, María Lachapel, a young teacher, began working with fifth graders in the Mercedes Luisa Ramírez Educational Center, located in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In María’s classroom, there was a girl named Ruth Reyes.
“Ruth is a girl who lives with her mother, stepfather, and siblings. She is obedient, honest, and loving. She was (the) girl who when she raised her hand to participate, her contributions were always insightful,” says María.
Ruth was an engaged and active participant in classroom activities; however, there was a problem. “The case of Ruth was the most shocking (to me) as she expressed herself very well but could not read, much less write,” says María.
While Ruth showed promise in classroom discussions, she struggled to work in groups and always lagged behind.
And Ruth was not the only learner struggling. Results of the Third Grade National Diagnostic Evaluation conducted in 2017 found that children in the Dominican Republic face serious difficulties in acquiring essential skills for learning.
This first national evaluation for this grade level carried out by the Dominican Ministry of Education revealed that only 12 percent of children in third grade demonstrated the “satisfactory” level in the Spanish language. This means that only 12 out of 100 children are able to read short, simple, or complex texts comprehensively, understand its purpose, establish relationships between different ideas, deduce the meaning of words from the text, and draw on external knowledge and relate it to what they were reading. The evaluation showed 50 percent of learners were at an “elemental” level and the other 38 percent only achieved an “acceptable” level — implying that a clear majority of students were underperforming in school.
Just 15 minutes a day?
Through USAID’s Read Project, selected school districts are working to improve literacy skills of students in primary schools, training and mentoring teachers like María, and providing resources to teachers to help improve reading instruction strategies. In the school, María now implements evidence-based best practices that have allowed slow but steady progress for students like Ruth.
María began to implement a new strategy: 15 minutes of reading every day using the decodable and leveled books provided by USAID’s Read project. The decodable books are texts written with progressive difficulty and divided into six stages. These resources helped her identify the reading level of each of her students, including Ruth, and how each was progressing. By working with the books, Ruth started to understand the texts better and did the activities with minimal help. Seeing her progress through the different reading stages, María saw that Ruth showed an increased interest in reading and writing.
“What I liked the most is the continuous mentoring, the multiple activities [the project] offers, and the recommendations made to the teachers, helping us adopt best practices in the teaching-learning process. This is a great help for students who have not reached the necessary reading fluency and comprehension. The constant motivation for students and teachers has been and will be the best gift that the Read Project has given us,” says María.
Literacy goes online
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in the Dominican Republic, teachers and the education center management team were worried. They feared that Ruth and the other children’s reading and writing progress would be negatively impacted.
However, Ruth’s family began to play a more active role in her learning process. And teachers began to join parents in a virtual format and helped teach families how to keep the learning process alive.
During the pandemic, María says that “there were difficult moments in which we had to reinvent ourselves to get ahead. I was personally infected with COVID-19. It has been a very unpleasant experience. But not everything is negative. During the time at home I took the opportunity to call the families of the students that had been lagging behind. It was not difficult for me to carry out the work because I was always willing; now is not the time to complain, but to move forward to obtain good results.”
Now, thanks to the efforts of teachers like María, Ruth and her classmates are able to read and write all on their own.
After almost two years, Ruth continues to show her progress: her sixth grade teacher has told María that she is still working hard and has been praised for her responsibility and dedication. Ruth, in particular, was so grateful for this opportunity that she made a video of gratitude reading the bible, which was shared with the school members and with the project counterparts.
Last year, María was recognized for her work by the Mercedes Luisa Ramírez Educational Center, and for her efforts to improve the reading skills of students like Ruth.
“Without a doubt, our country can change if citizens are educated in all aspects,” she says. “Only in this way will we live in a more honest, supportive, and more equitable society, then we will have more opportunities and a better future.”
About the Author
Brenda Silverio is the Social Media Specialist at USAID’s Mission in the Dominican Republic. UNIBE also contributed to this story.
USAID Read Project, implemented by Universidad Iberoamericana (UNIBE), has helped improve the reading skills of over 286,000 students in 387 schools in targeted communities; developed over 627,000 reading materials and teacher guides that precisely targets boosting literacy skills; and trained over 2,000 teachers on best practices for effective reading instruction in almost six years of implementation.
