NAPPS call for FG’s adoption of new reading model

The National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), has called on the Ministry of Education to adopt a new model in reading: Hellophonics, which has been designed as an advancement tool for effective and easier reading for school children and adult literacy.

The NAPPS President, Dr. Sally Bolujoko, who unveiled the reading model author, Taiwo A. Adekanye, said the Ministry of Education would need to seek out the author and her book so it can reach schools and begin to impact on learning standards for quality education. 

“We are still learning the way we did 70, 80 years ago. The government should begin to lay emphasis on research. Let the univerities be supported. If they are too much, let them be reduced to those that can become world class institutions. “If you go round the world, learning institutions have changed from the system we use here including the British Abacus etcetera. People are now using simpler methods that improve learning capabilities of children. 

“They have also found a way to help children read well from the Nursery level. This is where this author has invested 8 years of her time to develop the use of sound to teach to spell and read better,” the NAPPS President said in her interaction with media in Abuja.

The public sector class were criticised as part of the problem for their preference in foreign education for their wards while the country’s educational standard continue to suffer. On this note, she called out politicians and civil servants to send their wards to government schools like mostly nations so they can have the stake in to track the education budget. 

“Right now, it seems government has abdicated its responsibility in educating the Nigerian child because there are schools that are nothing to write home about. But we in the private schools, we borrow money and incure double and sometimes triple digits to pay back. Such sacrifices are made to keep our private schools to standard.

“Only NAPPS schools give the closest to quality education in Nigeria. We can’t do it as it is done elsewhere but we are the only ones trying with borrowed money to give the Nigerian child quality education,” she lamented. 

The book, Hellophonics, is a product of 8 years research effort by Mrs. Adekanye whose expertise on child psychology gave her the necessary wherewithal and enabling environment to carry out her work effectively. Such environment includes a children orchestra she runs by virtue of her certification in film and music. 

Adekanye said  started work on the book as a result of her dissatisfaction with the way schools teach. So, she thought of a simpler way reading could be make easier. 

“Then I decided to run a research. I combined the phoenics of some Nigerian languages and put them together to see how they can work. Consciously and unconsciously, i try to analyse words I hear and aligned the construct to work effectively for easy reading for children even with Nigerian words.

“I did a case study on children and I discovered that each child that I tested the model on learned effectively in about a month and could even read a newspaper or magazine, pronouncing grammatical words,” she explained.The author, on her part, called on the government to adopt the model for effective and easier reading for children and adult literacy. So long as a subject cannot read, the book, she insisted, can help for easy reading.