My picks for Class Libraries Grades 3-4 in Jamaican Schools

This is a continuation of my blog postof September 7, with suggestions for books for grades 3-4. Many of the children in these grades are reading below grade level. 
I’m starting with books by Jamaican authors, most of which are available in Jamaica and on Amazon. 

Published by LMH

By Hazel Campbell:   Juice Box and Scandal   

                                    Tilly Bummie

                                    Ramgoat Dashalong

                                    Goat Boy Never Cries

By Isabel Marvin:       Saving Joe Louis

Published by Carlong in the Sand Pebble Series

            Every Little Thing will be All Right by Diane Browne

            Jenny and the General by Jean D’Costa

            Miss Bettina’s House by Hazel Campbell

Beenybud Stories by Linda Gambrill published by Ian Randle

            Miss Tiny

            A Boy Named Neville

            Croaking Johnny and Dizzy Lizzie

By Cedella Marley

            The Boy from Nine Miles

            One Love

            Every Little Thing

By Everard Palmer published by Macmillan Caribbean

            A Cow Called Boy

            The Sun Salutes You

            My Father Sun-Sun Johnson

            Cloud with the Silver Lining

Books from the wider Caribbean. Many are listed on Anansesem’s website.

Examples:       My Two Grannies by Floella Benjamin

                        My Two Grandads by Floella Benjamin

                        Boysie and the Kiskadee by Britta Rajkumar 

Books in Macmillan Caribbean Hop, Step, Jump Series

            Sally's Way (Paperback) by Joanne Johnson          

The School that Sank by Sherry North

Sailing Days by Sherry North

The Angry Mountain by Charlotte Megan Adams

Gary the Smartest Gecko by Thalia Bell

Shauna’s Hurricane by Francine Jacobs
and other books in this series.

Books from Africa
See my blog post of April 2015 for suggestions.
I would like to highlight The No 1 Car Spotter by Atinuke. There are 6 books in this series.
and
Circle Unbroken  by Margo Theis Raven - the story of how the art of basket-making was taken from Africa to the Carolinas. Is there a similar story of the way in which the art of basket-making was brought to Jamaica?
The following books were not listed in that blog post:
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain (Rise and Shine)
by Verna Aardema  
Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale by Verna Aareema       There  are many more books by this author.                                                                                                                                                                                                                
Goal! by Mina Javaherbin 

Most of the big publishing houses have series of graded readers.

Harper Collins has “I Can Read” Levels 3 and 4 are suitable for the corresponding grades.

Random House has “Step into Reading”

Scholastic has “Readers”. Levels 2 and 3 are recommended for children who are becoming independent readers.

DK Readers cover a wide range of non-fiction topics. Grade 4 children should find some that interest them in levels 2 & 3.

Penguin Young Readers Level 3

I picked the following books, which are culturally North American, from a list of books enjoyed by children at The Centre for Teaching and Learning. They are all available on Amazon.

Easier, well-illustrated books to encourage struggling and reluctant readers.

1.     Bridwell, Norman     The Clifford series – picture books about 30 pages long, more appropriate for grades 1-2 , but could still be of interest.

2.     Charlip, Remy    Fortunately This picture book might appeal to reluctant readers.

3.     Griffiths, Andy   The 13-Story Treehouse (The Treehouse books). These books are longer, but still have lots of illustrations and not so much text.

4.     McMullan, Kate   I’m Dirty; I’m Smart; I’m Fast and other titles all about vehicles. Text in the books varies in size and there are activities such as identifying tools.

5.     Rey, H.A.   The Curious George series – timeless classics about a monkey who gets into trouble – picture books intended for reading aloud.

6.     Willems, Mo     Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs 

Chapter books for average readers.

1.     Osborne, Mary Pope    TheMagic Tree House books take Jack and Annie to times and places other than contemporary U.S.A. They are ideal for children who are starting chapter books.

2.     Abbott, Tony    The Secrets of Droon books. These fantasies are also chapter books, average 90 pages long.

3.     Barrows, Annie    The Ivy and Bean series. These chapter books, about 120 pages long are available in paperback and Kindle editions. They would appeal more to girls, because the two central characters are girls.

4.     Bentley, Sue    The Magic Kitten series: would also appeal more to girls.

5.     Cleary, Beverly is a prolific author popular with children in the USA. Her Ralph S. Mouse books might be popular with boys in Jamaica.

6.     Kimpton, Diana    ThePony-Crazed Princess series – popular with girls who like to read about princesses and horses!

7.     Krulik, Nancy    The Magic Bone series – stories about dogs, for example Be Careful What You Sniff – might appeal to boys.

8.     Miles, Ellen    The Puppy Place Series 100+ pp Gr 4 should be able to read these, but they are somewhat culture bound. At least 45 books.

9.     Roy, Ron    A-Z Mysteries series: Appropriate reading level but culturally North American.

10.  Rylant, Cynthia   Henry and Mudge books, about a white boy and his dog, but I think Jamaican boys can identify with him.

11.  Silverman, Erica    Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa

12.  Wallace, Bill   The Flying Flea, Callie, and Me
Collections
1. The Usborne collection of fairy tales, folk tales, fiction, and nonfiction
2. The Kingfisher Treasuries: Many books suitable for this age group

Books for more competent readers.

1.     Applegate, Katherine: I love 2 books of hers, not least because of the poetic language. Home of the Brave written in Kek’s voice, is the story of a refugee boy from Africa, adapting to a new life in the USA. The One and Only Ivan is about a gorilla who was kept in a small cage in a shopping mall. I expect Crenshaw is equally good. 

2.     Brown, Peter     TheWild Robot – about how a robot survives in the wilderness.

3.     Dahl, Roald Charlie and the Chocolate Factory;  Giraffe, Pelly, and Me; The BFG; Fantastic Mr. Fox; and The Enormous Crocodile These timeless classics continue to be popular with children. .

4.     King-Smith, Dick  A Mouse Called Wolf, and other books are entertaining stories.

5.     McDonald, Megan    The Judy Moody and Stink series. Lots of titles about a brother and sister, sometimes on their own, other times together. 

6.     Willems, Mo     The Story of Diva and Flea

7.     Watson, Tom   The Stick Dog series – engaging stories and simple illustrations to inspire children who don’t like to draw. 

      Wallace, Bill Trapped in Death Cave

 

Closing the GSAT Gap

Library at Kendal Primary, ranked 5th in GSAT
in Hanover. Great Shape Inc donated many books
and assisted teachers at this school.

“Close GSAT Gap” was the headline in the Gleaner on Nov 24, 2015, the gap being between the high rankings of the Prep Schools and lower ranking of the Primary Schools. I would first question the reality of this gap, because the scores for the schools are based on the average score for all children taking GSAT in that school. If you considered only the top half of the entrants (for example the top 3 streams in a 6 stream school) in a selected primary school, you might well get scores comparable to those of the prep schools. The primary schools have no choice but to enter all the children who pass the grade 4 Literacy and Numeracy Tests. The numbers of entrants from some of these primary schools far exceed the numbers form any prep school; for example 257 from Corinaldi Avenue Primary and 251 from Mandeville Primary and Junior High. The prep schools are less likely to have as many poorly performing students, partly because the parents of prep school children are paying high fees and do everything they can to make sure their children get high scores.

The article implied that the prep schools are

In Mount Alvernia Prep Library, presenting copies of
Delroy in the Marog Kingdom, donated by past students.

performing very much better than the primary schools; and that the principal and staff of prep schools are in a position to advise the principals of the primary schools. If the principals of the prep schools took over the primary schools, I doubt if there would be any improvement in performance, given the environment and resources of the primary schools. The GSAT Gaps I am more concerned about are the gap between the performance of boys and girls; (it would be interesting to know the extent of the gender gap in prep schools) ; the gap between the best and worst performing students of any school; and the gap between urban schools (urban here meaning all urban centres, not just Kingston) and rural schools.

 In the GSAT Ranking supplement of the same day there were ‘Edu’ quotes. I select 2 of them which I think have a strong bearing on the GSAT Gaps.

1^st quote from Maya Angelou: “My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.”

Buckingham Primary, a rural school

There are many people who do not see illiteracy as an impediment to advancing in life, and are skeptical of the advantages of education. They know of educated people, including trained teachers and others with university degrees unable to find jobs.  The children of farmers are extra pairs of hands, and are often taken out of school when they reach the age when they can be helpful. In urban areas, boys are sent out to hustle. Other young people get involved in criminal activities, such as ganja growing and ‘scamming’ which they consider to be legitimate means of earning a living. These attitudes are transmitted to school children whose parents don’t insist on regular attendance, punctuality or doing homework.

2^nd quote from William Temple: “The most influential of all educational factors is the conversation in a child’s home.”

This is true all over the world. Studies have shown that 6-year-old children of educated parents have a wider vocabulary and a better command of language than those of less well educated parents. In Jamaica we have the added complication of having two languages. For many children, creole or patois is their only language until they start going to school. When they start learning to read, they have to make an abrupt shift to the unfamiliar syntax of Standard Jamaican English (SJE). They are also encouraged to speak this language at school, reinforced by numerous exercises in writing grammatically correct English. There is resentment against this in some quarters, English being the language of the former slave-masters and the present-day upper classes. As a result, children perform poorly, because all school subjects require competence in SJE. The children who attend prep schools are more likely to be fluent in both SJE and patois, so do not encounter the same difficulties or negative attitudes to SJE. 

I don’t think that the school communities of prep schools would be in a position to address either the language or the attitude barriers to improved performance in GSAT. What could make a difference?

In relation to attitude, there need to be more employment opportunities together with a campaign to inform people about the qualifications needed for these jobs. Politicians are fond of announcing “Jobs, jobs, jobs,” but fail to tell people they will need CSEC English to fill many of these jobs; and that preparation for CSEC English begins in Grade 1 of the primary schools!

In relation to the language dilemma, I submit that children should be taught to read, and have their early teaching in Jamaican creole. This suggestion has been made before and research has been carried out in several countries where a creole is spoken. I quote from an article ‘Creole Speakers and Standard Language Education’, by Gillian Wigglesworth et al, in the Language and Linguistics Compass 7/7 (2013):

“However, Siegel  points out that while there is very limited research on the use of creoles in education, the positive benefits are clear and include increased motivation and improvement in the standard variety as well as improvement in overall academic performance. He also notes that none of the studies in this area show any negative effects.

The benefits of beginning schooling in a child’s home language are well documented."

In Aruba, Papiamento, a creole which has its origins in African languages and Portuguese, replaced Dutch as the official language in 2003. Aruba has one of the highest standards of living and lowest unemployment rates in the Caribbean region. In addition to speaking Papiamento, many people there are fluent in Spanish, English and Dutch,

 Here in Jamaica, Hubert Devonish, Professor of Linguistics at UWI, one of the strongest advocates fighting for Jamaican Patois as a language. He carried out a study in a primary school, teaching the children from grades 1-4 in both patois and SJE. The children, especially the boys, performed better than average in this programme. Teaching in patois could also help to close the gap in performance between boys and girls. Although the results of this study are gathering dust on the shelves in the Ministry of Education, Professor Devonish is confident that Jamaican Creole will become one of the official languages of Jamaica. He carried out a survey in which he found that 70% of the population would be in favour of this. However, there are many Jamaicans who have a negative attitude towards patois.

Georgene Growe (r) donated Delroy in the Marog Kingsom to
the Principal of Kendal Primary School. At left,Gretchen Lee,
a volunteer organizer with Great Shape Inc.

Giving children more access to books for them to read for pleasure would be another way of closing the GSAT gaps. It has been shown that children who read regularly (about 40 books a year) for pleasure perform better in all subject areas than children who read very little. The average prep school child is more likely than the average primary school child. to be an avid reader. Only a small percentage of children make frequent visits to their local libraries, and school libraries vary considerably in their usefulness. Class libraries stocked with enough books at the reading levels of all the children in the class would go a far way towards meeting this need, as I explained in my blog post of September 23, 2014 "How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers". "A class Library Movement" would require funding, but more than that would require the will and the understanding of teachers and parents to make it work. Past students could also be asked to  donate books for class libraries.
So that is my wish-list for closing the GSAT Gaps: a desire for education throughout the population; the teaching of children in Jamaican Creole; and Class Libraries for every class in every school. In the future these libraries would have in them books written in Jamaican Creole and illustrated by Jamaicans!