Kaduna govt training primary school teachers on jolly phonics ― Commissioner

The Kaduna State Government said on Saturday that it would train all its primary school teachers on jolly phonics to fast track the learning outcomes of pupils in public primary schools.

The state Commissioner for Education, Dr Shehu Makarfi, made this known in Zaria, after monitoring ongoing training of 3,000 primary school teachers on the technique, supported by Global Partnership for Education.

Jolly Phonics is a fun and child-centred approach to teaching children to read and write; a technique that focuses on sounds and how letters are pronounced, blended and grouped to form sounds.

“We have found the technique very effective because it is interesting, it is fun, and it makes learning how to read and write faster.

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“This is because children learn through play, songs and dancing; therefore, the jolly phonic technique will equip teachers with necessary skills to be able to introduce songs, dancing and play into teaching,” he said.

According to him, no subject is difficult to teach, it all depends on how the teacher teaches the subject, which will either make it interesting or uninteresting.

The commissioner said that the state government would continue to invest in teacher training and retraining so they would be innovative and creative and make teaching interesting and easy for the learners.

Makarfi said that so far, more than 6,000 primary one and two teachers, as well as their officials across the state had been trained on the effective use of the technique.

“For us, the jolly phonic technique is an effective way of making our children learn faster, so we are going to improve it, sustain it and extend beyond primary one and two teachers to all primary school teachers,” he said.

One of the teachers, Mrs Susan Eniaye of Muchia Model School, Sabon Gari, Zaria, thanked the state government for investing in teacher training and retraining to make them more effective.

Another teacher, Faiza Abdulmumuni, said that the jolly phonic technique had made teaching very interesting, easy, fun and improved learning outcomes of primary one pupils.