World Vision wins prestigious Education Resources Award

Contact:          Cat-Dan Lai-Smith, Global Education Communications Advisor
                       World Vision International, Education and Life Skills Sector
                       cat-dan_lai-smith@wvi.org
                       +44 7464 325323

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

17 March 2017, London, UK – World Vision International (WVI) has been announced an Education Resources Award (ERA) winner in the 2017 ERA competition.

“We are so thrilled and consider it a real honour to win this award,” says Linda Hiebert, World Vision’s Partnership Leader for Global Education. “We entered the competition to help gain more recognition for the ongoing efforts to support teachers who have been helping millions of children around the world improve their reading skills.”

The international development charity won the award in one the most nominated categories of Primary Resource or Equipment (Tools for leadership, management and assessment including ICT). In line with its key objective to help educate children for life, WVI’s global education team developed nine teacher training videos to enhance teacher training for its primary school literacy improvement programming in 27 developing countries. The videos were developed to support classroom management techniques and direct instruction in line with a project model named “Literacy Boost”[1] that WVI helped launch in partnership with Save the Children.

The ERA judges’ panel describes the winning resource as: “A truly inspirational programme that trains teachers in teaching children to read. The Literacy Boost Teacher Training Video Modules make excellent use of mainstream technology, to have real impact on raising teaching standards for children who would otherwise have very little opportunity to learn how to read.”   

“Through this project, we have trained thousands of teachers and volunteers, established community action groups and reading camps, as well as produced over four millions books and materials to help children read,” says World Vision Literacy Specialist, Kristy Smith.

Primary school teachers who work in Literacy Boost intervention schools are trained on how to teach the five core reading skills - letter knowledge, phonemic awareness, reading fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension - using active learning approaches, assessment and adaptations for second language learners. Training is organised into nine sessions, equipping teachers with useful tools and techniques to effectively teach children how to read and to remain motivated to learn while in the classroom.

WVI developed the teacher training video modules to “bring to life” classroom elements of instruction so master trainers and the teachers they train are able to see and understand the skill or strategy involved.

The entire set of video modules includes: 1) Think-Pair-Share; 2) Formative Assessment; 3) Teacher Read-Aloud; 4) Phonemic Awareness Strategies; 5) Shared/Guided Reading; 6) Pair/Partner Reading; 7) Reading Fluency Assessment; 8) Independent Reading; 9) Reading Comprehension Strategies. The scripts were developed by a WV education specialist, and the videos were filmed by Matter Studio in Malawi where they were contextualised by WV’s in-country education team. 

Another core reason that WVI invests in extensive teacher training and support is because children respond positively to well-trained teachers. For instance, seven year old Anick from one of World Vision’s development programmes in Burundi, described the following about her Literacy Boost-trained teacher, "The teacher is teaching us very well and he's very friendly. That makes me love school very much."

View all nine of World Vision’s award-winning teacher training videos here.

The Education Resources Awards are a premier, annual event dedicated to showcasing the most outstanding educational innovations, products and services in the education sector. It administers the distinguished awards competition annually with the goal of raising the awareness of educational establishments and honouring the most dedicated individuals within the teaching profession.

World Vision is a global Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.

For more information about World Vision’s award-winning teacher training videos that are part of the literacy-improvement programme called "Unlock Literacy", please visit this link or contact WVI’s Global Education Communications Advisor, Cat-Dan Lai-Smith at cat-dan_lai-smith@wvi.org.

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