"Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”

How the World Reads is a project championed by International Reading Association President, Dr. Patricia Edwards. The project aims to inquire into the methods and strategies used by teachers to teach reading and reading comprehension and to ascertain how teachers are trained globally to teach children to read.

Affiliates of the IRA were invited to answer questions on how literacy is supported in their own countries. These questions included:

•If classrooms exist, how are they organized for learning?
•What does a typical school day look like?
•How are teachers selected, educated, and compensated?
•What are the educational resources provided to young learners?
•How are special populations’ educational needs addressed?
•How are differences in language and dialect addressed in schools?


Writing in the August/September 2010 issue of the Reading Teacher, Dr Edwards noted "[w]hile we have learned a great deal about the status of literacy in different countries, what we do not know is how teachers teach children how to read or how teachers are prepared to teach reading in different countries around the world...There have been studies on literacy instruction in a few countries, but to my knowledge, there is no study focused on how the world reads or how reading instruction is taught worldwide. It is time that such a study is done.'

The Barbados Association of Reading's How the World Reads Committee chaired by Dr. Patricia Saul, Deputy Principal of Erdiston College, has prepared a presentation on Barbados' experiences with literacy to be shared at the upcoming Annual Conference in Florida later this month.  The Committee was ably assisted by the Media Resource Department of the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development.

The Barbados Association of Reading will be giving a preview of the results of their enquiry at 6.00p.m. on Saturday, May 7th, 2011 at Erdiston Teachers' College.

The presentation is open to the general public as well as to members.