Ms. Ashely Gustave, Librarian at the Coulibistrie Primary School in the Commonwealth of Dominica, is fostering reading during school closures by supporting parents/caregivers and community members. Concerned that children are not getting the continuous learning while at home, Ms. Gustave is supporting reading efforts of early grade students. From the onset of the school closure, and subsequent limited school opening for teachers only, Ms. Gustave ensured that the school library was opened for students in the Coulibistrie community to access books, two to three times per week.
To date, Ms. Gustave has conducted training with six community members in one-on-one sessions and plans to continue to assist parents/caregivers and community members to increase the reading activities for more early grade students within the community. Ms. Gustave stated:
“I created this ‘Read Aloud’ programme to encourage the children to continue reading at home and to keep them motivated while they are out of school. We want to ensure that when they come back to school in September, they will be well prepared. We have partnered with parents to conduct ‘Read Alouds’ at home with their children and are encouraging them to share recordings of the reading sessions for us to share on the Coulibistrie Primary School Library Facebook page.”
One of the recent recipients of the training, Ms. Pamela Laudat was very appreciative of the training and stated:
“I plan to use these skills to conduct ‘Read Alouds’ in the community and during Sunday School with Bible stories. I have always been interested in the welfare of the children of this community and I am keen to support their early reading development.”
