Using the Literature Based Approach to Enhance the Comprehension Levels (PART 1)

At the heart of every reading exercise is comprehension. Comprehension is the ability to understand what is decoded. The skills in comprehension include the ability to summarize, to determine importance, to visualize, to retell and to question the text. Many students have difficulty comprehending. It is, therefore, relevant that literacy programmes are developed to help such students. A literacy programme is defined as a planned sequence of activities designed to teach students requisite literacy skills that will ultimately result in competence. Through this process, learning can take place and an improvement in the child’s performance, attitude and confidence will be seen. 

In the Jamaican society today, the Ministry of Education Youth and Culture

developed and endorsed the slogan, “Every Child Can Learn, Every Child Must Learn.” Literacy is one of the key factors in the mission for success. It should be that everyone has a thirst for learning. Without education one is deprived of certain things in society such as a decent job. When literacy is a part of one’s life, it presents a further foundation for further learning to take place. I believe in the whole language approach to literacy, in which emphasis is placed on not just reading and writing, but more on comprehension. This, I believe, can be achieved through the planning, implementation and evaluation of well deserved literacy programmes so that it may be decided how best to help the ‘children of tomorrow’. This will help to highlight the fact of literacy being more than the ability to read and write. The influence of the home plays an important part on school life.

Various ways such as dramatization, role-play, poetry, as well as other creative ways can be used to enhance lessons as well as to get students to express themselves. This in turn, helps to enhance students’ imagination therefore, giving them the confidence to express themselves freely without being condescending.