Hello, i'm Eva and this is my first entry. i look forward to many more encounters through this medium.

I am a language teacher in Nigeria. I taught reading readiness and learning to read skills in My home school with great success. I used the Accellerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum. Pupils were able to read both known and new words quite fluently. Some of my pupils who continued with sustained interest in reading showed growth in reading comprehension as they attained higher levels of education. Others however who did not develop interest in reading had to take remedial training in secondary schools in vacabulary and reading comprehension accross their school subjects. Since then i have read criticisms of the ACE curriculum as encouraging rote learning. I however believe from my experience, that the ACE systematic phonics instruction helps early ESL learners develop reading skills and that they also show growth in reading comprehension with sustained practice.

Recently, i undertook the Ruthmiskin's literacy training in Phonics instruction in the UK. This gave me an insight into other aspects of begining reading instruction such as the importance of including the teaching of comprehension and critical thinking strategies into phonics instruction to make it a better stepping stone for life-long critical reading. I shall put this new skill to more effective use in a few weeks and i look forward to the sessions which shall also be learning experiences for me.

We have a literacy problem in Nigeria. This situation arose from the introduction of the Universal Primary Education programme which brought about an explosion in the number of schools in the country. This in turn resulted in the hurried training of teachers to meet the new demand. The emergency teachers were ill-prepared to impart the skills expected of them. Being a multi lingual country, the area affected most is the medium of instruction. Curriculum stipulation requires the use of mother tongue for first three years of instruction . This is not practicable due to lack of homogenous mother tongues especially in the urban areas. The teacher himself/herself has not had adequate trainig in English. She/He now has to teach pupils in a language (English) which s/he is not proficient in. Both teacher and pupils are in a language dilema. The teacher also does not have the skills to impart in litearcy instruction.

This affects students' performance accross the curriculm. I would like to know how other countries with similar situations have got around them.

Thank You

Eva Kyaagba