Editor’s Note: This story was originally printed in Reading Today magazine. Currently,  Sierra Leone is highly impacted by the Ebola crisis and schools are closed throughout the country and to compensate, students are learning some subjects at home via radio. As of this online publication, the Koinadugu region is Ebola-free and teacher training continues. IRA sends our sympathies for Ebola losses and our hopes the region will soon eradicate the disease.

As rain thunders from the sky on the tin roof and the generator rumbles, 30 Master Teachers from villages across the Koinadugu region of Sierra Leone demonstrate best practices in literacy education. Volunteers from the International Reading Association (IRA) look on in celebration. This scene is part of an IRA initiative that was successfully launched in July 2013, through which approximately 640 teachers have been trained in Diagnostic Teaching Methods (DTM). The two-year project is co-sponsored with Catholic Relief Services and funded through the United States Department of Agriculture. The ultimate goal of the project is to improve classroom teaching and children’s learning throughout Sierra Leone.

What Is the Diagnostic Teaching Methods Model?

DTM is a K–12 model of instruction that is based on current literacy research and effective classroom
practices. It is intended for countries where literacy educators have not been exposed to contemporary methods of teaching. A central component of DTM is its emphasis on participatory teaching methods that integrate research about prior knowledge, emerging literacy, vocabulary, comprehension, and the writing process. Teaching strategies such as KWL (what I Know, what I Want to know, what I did Learn), prediction, retelling, story structure, reciprocal teaching, and every-pupil-respond techniques are presented through demonstration lessons. After each demonstration lesson the participants discuss and reflect about how the DTM method might be effectively applied to their own school contexts. The project has been implemented in other African countries, such as Tanzania and Kenya, but this is the first time it has been taught in this West African country.

Civil War Recovery, 80 Students Per Class

Sierra Leone is a beautiful country that rests on the Atlantic Ocean and stretches inland to the neighboring countries of Guinea and Liberia. Although it has many natural resources—such as one of
the finest ports in the world, iron, diamonds, and gold—the country continues to recover from a devastating civil war that created enormous challenges to its infrastructure and schools. The majority
of its teachers are volunteers who are uncertified by the educational ministry. These volunteers teach in the hope of someday becoming certified. Teachers are typically faced with large classes containing
as many as 80 children and have limited, or nonexistent, books and supplies. Most schools have no electricity or even plumbing, and certainly no technology. Yet despite these formidable challenges the teachers, both certified and uncertified, are highly motivated and committed to helping all children learn to read and write.

The purpose of the project is to prepare school leaders in DTM so that they can later prepare other teachers throughout their regions. Two IRA members, Nancy Allen (Qatar University) and Peter McDermott (Pace University) conducted three one-week workshops spread across the academic year. Participants who complete all three workshops are eligible to be certified as DTM trainers. During the course of the program, they have been training other teachers in their districts in DTM methods and will be expected to continue to do so in the future. There are challenges in sharing DTM’s literacy methods in Sierra Leone. Many of the schools lack sufficient literacy materials such as books, paper, and pencils, and participants must learn to become creative with the few resources they do have. There are language differences to overcome, as the first language of people in Sierra Leone is Kreole, with English as a second language. Often written materials that seem clear in the United States are difficult for teachers in Sierra Leone to understand because of specialized vocabulary used in literacy education (e.g., schema, text structure, etc.).

Combining Local Tradition With Teaching Methods

The most exciting and engaging DTM lessons are those that actively involve the participants in discussion and critical thinking about the familiar. For example, to teach story structure, Nancy and Peter asked a volunteer to tell a traditional story. Kai, an experienced teacher, shared a story his father taught him when he was a boy. The story was about a boy who was always lazy and later became a
poor, lazy man who could not afford a wife or children. Realizing that his life was a mess, he sought the advice of a sorcerer, who told him that he could easily become a rich man. All he had to do was collect a bucket of sweat! The man set out to collect his magic bucket of sweat, which required that he work without stopping. To his surprise, he soon found that he had filled the bucket and had also become rich. He married, had children, and lived happily ever after.

After listening to Kai’s story, the trainees analyzed it according to its narrative structure and discussed its similarities and differences to other stories they knew. They discussed how story structure could be effectively used when teaching children how to understand, retell, and question other narrative texts. Culturally specific connections such as this were often used to demonstrate how to use the teaching strategies in the DTM Handbook. IRA’s efforts to contribute to literacy education in Sierra Leone are greatly needed and appreciated by all the people with whom Nancy and Peter met. The 21st Century requires skilled readers and writers, and countries such as Sierra Leone will only prosper when their children are literate and well educated. IRA is making important contributions to literacy education in this western African country.

Nancy Allen, PhD (nancyjaneallen@gmail.com) is a visiting professor at Qatar University and has been an IRA member since 2009.
Peter McDermott, PhD (pmcdermott@pace.edu) is a professor at Pace University and has been an IRA member since 1986.