Middle Grade Books

SELI's small library collection covers picture books to what is called middle grade. 

What are middle grade books? They are novels or nonfiction books written for young people between the ages of 10 to somewhere in the teens. However, if the topic, such as historical fiction, is of general appeal and educational, people of any age enjoy reading middle grade books. 

In adding to SELI's collection we also pay attention to the cultural content of a book, because all children are best able to understand and become engaged by a book if they recognise themselves in the story. 

Here is a list of recently published middle grade books. Have a look and let me know which you think we should purchase for the SELI collection.

Can't Wait to Continue Storytelling

 I'm making plans for library services for the SELI library. 

I journaled starting out not just reading books aloud but doing storytelling as librarian at the American International School of Freetown a few (😆) years ago. I'll definitely work this into my plans at SELI.

Journal, April 1993: 

I'm trying to learn to become a storyteller (without a book).  Two weeks ago in my Library Fun club I told the story of Beowulf—the first epic poem written in English in the 8th century.  We have a good book that simplified it, but it was hard to learn and took 40 minutes to tell, partly because the kids all asked good questions. 

Today is St. Patrick's Day and I told an Irish story about a Brownie.  It took about 15 minutes, and they loved it!  It doesn't seem so hard now that I've done it twice, so I'm looking for another to learn.  I have to like the story and the way it’s written myself, but the idea is that you build their ability to think visually for an extended period of time because  right at the end of telling a long story, I read in a library journal, you can launch into a discussion of the highest theoretical kind--atomic theory or anything--and they will grasp it, because you already have them thinking visually.  I want to try that sometime and see.

Bring It On Home

It's not that easy for teachers to bring stories home to children from a written text. Magnificent illustrations help, and How Baboon Got a Shiny Rump certainly has those. Alternate text in a commonly-known language also helps, and the book has that, too. But a really good teacher can mold the text and the songs into just the right form to enter the children's hearts.

Here's storyteller/poet Kewulay Kamara showing us how, using a beautifully illustrated text in English of How Baboon Got a Shiny Rump, with a multi-age group of Kuranko-speaking children.

What's Better than a Book Talk?

Another way I promote all the purposes of SELI is by giving book talks in schools where the students have read my historical novel, The Heritage Keeper. Or, where I aim to interest the students in reading it! The schools must be among the few in town whose literature curriculum is not limited to the books set by the West African Examinations Council. Regrettably, since these are not SELI Young Writers schools, I do not have permission to post photos of the children at these events. 

In mid-February I attended an annual sports competition in the Hill Valley Academy at Mambo where in the past several years I have enjoyed lively discussions about reading, writing, and Sierra Leone history in that school with students who had read the book. It was good for me and lots of fun to see those same students that day in a different context.

I also was privileged to advocate for authorship of historical novels and read part of The Heritage Keeper to the secondary students of the British International School in Freetown during their Literacy Week. I loved the time I spent with them and hope they will enjoy the books and have lots of comments to make the next time I see them!

Celebrate World Literacy Day!

Today, September 8th, is World Literacy Day.

Please celebrate it by contributing any way, anywhere you can.

Partnering for Full Coverage

For the month of August, SELI is again delighted to be partnering with Transformation Education in their annual training to improve Class 1-3 literacy instruction.

SELI is also very glad that Moses M. Gbondo—a very able SELI Young Writers after school club facilitator for nine years now, as well as the acting school principal of Abundant Grace International School in Sussex—willingly agreed to carry out the presentation in my absence.

Our purview is as before: the writing aspect of early literacy. Topics we are covering are a) characteristics of classrooms where writing is taught well in an ESL setting, b) literacy and the brain, c) the writing process, and d) writing genres for classes 1-3. Lots of hands-on, practical work, of course!

Although heritage languages are not part of this training, we at SELI are glad to hear that Sierra Leone language literacy is being brought into schools in classes 1-3 in the near future. These literacy-teaching skills can be used to bring about literacy in children in whatever languages they may speak.

Training in Partnership

 

Representing SELI in partnership with Transformation Education (TE), I thoroughly enjoyed 4 days in mid-April during which I conducted the writing aspect of two of TE’s early-education literacy teacher trainings. 

The trainings took place in two different schools in Freetown, but the teachers came from a variety of schools that TE supports to develop skills in teaching early reading.

In addition to discussing what happens in the brain when we write and the developmental writing stages of beginning writers, the teachers spent time writing personal experiences in order to learn the writing process first hand. (In the first photo you see participants grouped according to stages in the process—sorry about the panoramic view distortion). 

I think we all could see that an ESL and routine-based process writing class, low-stakes and frequently held, is an essential part of an early literacy program in our setting. Reading and writing activate each other. Learning to write our own thoughts must and can be taught, and doing it builds the same brain paths (although in opposite directions) as does learning to read.

Graduation Day

It was Friday afternoon on June 7th, 2019, and it was testing day at Dankawalie Secondary School library in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. Ten adult mother-tongue-literacy learners had come to demonstrate that they had mastered level 2 of the Institute of Sierra Leone Languages' (TISLL)'s book series in Kuranko literacy.

TISLL's evaluator, Rev. Frederick Jones, was present along with the class teachers, Alusine H. Kamara and Balla Musa Kargbo. The SELI director was also there because SELI initiated the teacher training, has supported the class with materials, and brought the evaluator to the village. This was a big day for all of us.

The certificates were given out by the Regent Paramount Chief by the massive cotton tree at the center of the village. Hawa Kargbo, the only woman in the group, appealed to the women in the audience to consider joining her in the class so they could give each other confidence. This was good evidence to everyone that the "graduates" have no intention of graduating. At TISLL's urging, using their new-found literacy, the class is putting together a book of proverbs and short personal accounts for publication as a reader. Some are interested in going on to learn English.

SELI has initiated and supported this program because languages without a firm literary population tend to die out as cultural change takes place, and people ought to, by right, be given the opportunity to learn to read and write their own languages. The program is going on (another dozen or so adult learners are now working at level 1), but it needs to be funded. If you have an interest in the continuation of the Kuranko literacy class at Dankawalie, please consider making a donation to SELI for that purpose. We need your help! Please contact me at jackie@seli.co .

The Institute for Sierra Leone Languages could also use your support. While we at SELI are very pleased with TISLL's willingness to help with the Dankawalie Kuranko class, Kuranko is not currently one of the languages TISLL works with. For a Kuranko literacy program to be started up at multiple places in the Northern Province that language needs to be funded at TISLL.

All the Ways Children Learn

There is a library in a village community school two hours from Kabala in northern Sierra Leone where twice a week the Sentinel English Language Institute's Young Writers club meets. It is a setting where writing and reading happen throughout the week—a place where children learn—and it very much needed a new floor.

Just a few weeks ago, thanks to donations of money and time from friends and family, SELI made  half of this happen, and Dankawalie Secondary School's library now has a new floor. What astounded us was the other half of this effort: the perseverance and coordination of the community volunteers, who included both teachers and students. We were also delighted that some students took working with the tilers and masons as a learning project. DSS is trying to increase the variety of vocational opportunities it offers, and this was certainly one of them.

We witnessed another type of learning in Dankawalie when one evening after dark a group of much smaller children came to the house to ask our host, Kewulay Kamara, (who had come from NY to see how developments were going on at the school) if he would listen to them tell stories. He told them that it was too dark, but that they could do it the next night if during the day "tomorrow," or "sina," each one of them would bring firewood so there'd be a fire to see by.

 Here's how he told them, and as he improvised we all learned how poems can come to be.

The Best Writing Teachers are Teachers Who Write

2017 Update

The new year has been a busy one at SELI, what with visiting SELI Young Writers club schools and  giving daily Business Writing mentoring classes, an in-servicing we offer to businesses and organizations in Freetown.

In mid-March, we traveled to the Koinadugu District in the northeast of Sierra Leone on a trip made possible by support from Edward Davies & Associates Consulting Engineers Ltd. One of the things we do there is to check up on the progress of the Kuranko Karan (shown here), a mother tongue adult literacy class in Dankawalie Village. We have nothing but praise for this group, that meets three times a week from 8-9:00 pm after a full day's work and was asking for Books II and III of their text. We have been able to send them thanks to the resources of The Institute of Sierra Leone Languages (TISLL) who also trained the teachers (in the back row in orange and white shirts) and are monitoring the program. On its own, the group hopes to revise the text, as well as compile a Kuranko reader: they will soon need Kuranko books to read, and they are very hard to find!

We also go to the Northern Province to visit our writing clubs.

We found most of the schools involved in their annual sports competitions, but we talked with the teachers and delivered supplies they'd fallen short of. Here you can see Dankawalie Secondary School's red house (and supporters) heading off for the competitions.

While they had been practicing, I had been working in the school library SELI helped to set up several years ago with a grant from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives and continues to support, mentoring DSS's teacher-librarian in this very rural setting.

Back to Basics

While we are arming our ESL literacy class for adults with oral language and phonics skills, we also use other strategies to get them reading.

One strategy is using early-grade high-frequency word lists. Together the items on these lists make up a high percentage of the words found in early readers and words children use when they write. Being able to recognize them by sight gives a big boost to literacy learning.

Usually, the most basic list contains words whose pronunciation could be difficult to explain. For example, while the list contains go, no and so, it also includes to and do and you—three words where the sound of o is very different. Because all six words are so common, it helps just to teach them all as sight words.

You would think that this strategy would be a cinch in Sierra Leone; that learning to read by rote, or by sight, would not be a problem because it is the way reading has always been taught in Sierra Leone. However, sometimes even teaching sight words can get tough.

Here's an example: one of the words on the most basic list is the. The pronunciation of the in standard English is [ðə] before consonants and [ði] before vowels. However, by far the most prevalent pronunciation of the word in Sierra Leone English is [di]. The consonant is different from standard English, and most people do not alter the vowel according to the beginning sound of the following word. Evidence for this prevalence is the widespread use of the spelling di for the word the in texting language in Sierra Leone.

Therefore, as we alternate drilling twenty-five basic sight words with guided reading activities in our class, the word the continues to be a bone in our throats. Neither [ðə] nor [ði] sounds like a word to our learners. We have the option, of course, of saying that Sierra Leone English is our students' target language, so why not teach the word as [di], and continue substituting the [d] sound for [ð] and [t] for its voiceless counterpart, wherever th occurs?

Uh, I don't think so. It’s time to move back to oral language activities. Those early exercises with indefinite articles (“Is this a book? No, it's not a book. It's a chair.”) need to be made definite, even if we have to introduce adjective clauses in the process (“Is this the pen you gave him? No, that's the orange I gave him.”). 

International Literacy Day

It's International Literacy Day today! First conceived by UNESCO, it has been recognized since the 1960s, so today, nearly fifty years later, we should all jump up and celebrate!

Well, not really, because literacy is about development. The first image on the UNESCO infographic (pictured here) illustrates how vital literacy is to all aspects of development. And reading further down, and looking at the information in this link, tells us in Sierra Leone we should worry, instead.

Literacy happens in schools. Few could have predicted all the specific, immediate events in the past that have brought about temporary (but usually prolonged) school closings in Sierra Leone—Ebola being only the most recent.

Nonetheless, we all know that reacting to sudden events is neither an educational nor a development strategy. Education only happens where it is valued. We reveal what we value by what we spend money on. Instead of being buffeted out of school by every passing wind, children in Sierra Leone should be well buffered by an unshakable, well-funded educational system that offers alternatives when things get tough.

A Good Place for Writers

The Kabala Secondary School JSS SELI Young Writers club is a place where students like to be. The facilitators, Alieu S. Kanu and Fatmata A. Kamara, have done a good job of communicating the student-centered idea of a writing workshop.

The students understand what their role is. They stamp a heading on their papers, they staple content conference forms to their drafts, they move on from one writing stage to another without being told. . . they have to participate and they have to want to learn. They are engaged in personal experience topics and they are prepared to write and read and think and write and read and think until their writing improves.

We were pleased to visit the club last week, and we were also pleased to see that SELI Young Writers meetings continue in this school even though the school is taking examinations. 

Having Trouble Reading? Write!

There are a few schools in Sierra Leone that have shelves full of reading books (as opposed to textbooks). However, in nearly every case where SELI has found such shelves to exist in schools, the books are not being read. Not only does the school not lend them out, but the students do not ask to read them. The sad fact is, many students would not understand the books if they did borrow them.

Much has been said about the lack of reading instruction in Sierra Leone's schools. Many of our secondary students have very poor reading comprehension skills and lack successful, positive reading experiences. Programs are being carried out to remedy this situation by improving reading/literacy instruction at the early primary level, and some of these programs also provide reading materials. What SELI does not see being implemented is process writing instruction at any level at all of the educational system.

After decades of teaching process writing in Sierra Leone, we are convinced that developing academic writing skills through process writing also improves reading comprehension. The literature supports our view:

 "Writing practices complement reading practices and should always be used in conjunction, with each type of practice supporting and strengthening the other. . . .Our evidence shows that . . . writing activities improved students’ comprehension of text over and above the improvements gained from traditional reading activities such as reading text, reading and discussing text, and receiving explicit reading instruction. . . . Students who do not develop strong writing skills may not be able to take full advantage of the power of writing as a tool to strengthen reading." (p. 29) 

Graham, S., and Hebert, M. A. (2010). Writing to read: Evidence for how writing can improve reading. A Carnegie Corporation Time to Act Report. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Where Are the People of Color?

"Then I read a story by James Baldwin: “Sonny’s Blues.” I didn’t love the story, but I was lifted by it, for it took place in Harlem, and it was a story concerned with black people like those I knew. By humanizing the people who were like me, Baldwin’s story also humanized me. The story gave me a permission that I didn’t know I needed, the permission to write about my own landscape, my own map."

In this quote from his New York Times opinion piece, "Where Are the People of Color in Children's Books?" children's book author Walter Dean Myers is asking an important question.  The publishers of this catalogue of children's books written in Sierra Leone and Liberia, also wanted the children who read them to recognize themselves and their own "landscapes" as they read.

Adult Mother-Tongue Literacy Class

The Dankawalie Secondary School Library (in Dankawalie, Sengbe Chiefdom, Koinadugu District in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone) is a community library. One of its community services is offering an adult mother tongue literacy class in Kuranko.

I was glad to have the opportunity to meet with 7/10 of the class this week. Just for me, they gathered at the odd hour of 8 am on Monday morning before they headed out to their farms where they are harvesting rice and planting groundnuts. Although most of the class members have had a Koranic education (and can therefore read and write in Arabic) they have had no formal schooling so cannot read and write in the Roman script. Their days are already full with all the work they do.

Although Kuranko is not one of the mother-tongue languages The Institute of Sierra Leone Languages is currently working with, SELI arranged for two teachers from DSS to be included in TISLL's literacy-teacher training workshop in May, 2013. In June, the class began, and you can see from these short videos here that there have been results! TISLL monitors and certificates the program, and is a wonderful collaborative partner.

This SELI Heritage Writers program is expanding and needs your support. The current members keep pointing out that the materials (originally written in the '70's and revised in the '90s) are outdated and would like to revise them. New members of the community want to join the class as beginners. Some current members are ready to go on to Book Two. Although the members pay, by installment, a cost price for the books, the supplies need to be bought and brought to the village.  The two teachers have been doing this work without any stipend at all as encouragement. When class members have completed Book Two we would like to a) encourage those interested to go on to second language learning in Krio or English, and b) start them into a writing workshop where they can record their stories, which will become Kuranko readers to add to the DSS Library collection if we can pay to have them printed. The two teachers, Mr. Balla M. Kargbo and Mr. Alusine H. Kamara, would like to see the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology accept appeals for new Sierra Leonean languages to be added to the current four examination languages at junior secondary level.

If you are able to make a small contribution toward this Heritage Writers project, please click on the DONATE button to the right!

Update on Dankawalie School Library

SELI spent this weekend in Dankawalie, where the Dankawalie Secondary School Library still has many more books to catalog. One of the two librarians, Amara K. Tarawallie, began entering books this time, interacting with me about the decisions that need to be made about each book, such as:

Is this book fiction or nonfiction—folklore or biography?
Is this an "Easy" book or a transitional, middle level book?
Is this the name of the title, or of the series?
Did this author write the original, or this adapted version?
Does this book have an author at all?

Meanwhile, two students were helping another teacher, Ishmael K. Mansaray, to stamp the books and put pockets and cards in them in preparation for entering them. These particular books were donated by Books for Africa.

I also took a peek through the window into the new library building, which was brought to near-completion last year thanks to a grant from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. It is built in the same circular shape as the classrooms in the school. As soon as everyone is satisfied that it is as secure as it needs to be for a library, the collection, furniture, etc. will be moved from its temporary quarters in a classroom into this building.

During June and July of 2013, four university students from the U.S. were in Dankawalie doing community service. One of the students, Ariana Lutterman, elicited library rules from Dankawalie teachers and students, to develop this poster, which we love! Armed with these new rules, the librarians have agreed to resume circulation of the books, which they had suspended at the end of the last school year. The DSS Library thanks you, Ariana!

Stands for a solar array are being erected outside the library, the adult mother-tongue literacy class has been going on since June, and more books are waiting to be catalogued—the DSS Library is showing all the signs of growing into a truly vibrant community/school library. If Dankawalie weren't eight hours of hard riding on very rough roads from Freetown, I would spend a great deal more time there, myself!

Dankawalie Secondary School Library

Now that the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives has funded setting up the library at the Dankawalie Secondary School (Sengbe Chiefdom, Koinadugu District), SELI has an ongoing commitment to its development. We are pleased to see digital development appearing from other sources. These photos tell the DSS library story through June, 2013. 

Five Writing Lessons: A New Take

SELI presented for a few hours at TISLL's (The Institute for Sierra Leonean Languages) Literacy Teacher/Facilitator Workshop, held Monday-Friday, May 27-31st in Freetown. The workshop trained people to teach literacy to nonliterate people in their mother tongue. Five different languages were represented.

On Wednesday, SELI introduced the idea that all classes are diverse: even in basic literacy classes there are always advanced learners that need to be challenged, and process writing can do this--a form of differentiated instruction. In this photo I'm presenting concepts, but then we went on to the practical: each participant drafted a personal piece of writing in his or her own language and then shared it in language groups in a content conference. It did not surprise us that many of the participants had never written a personal experience in their own language before. For nearly all Sierra Leoneans, the only road to literacy is through English. But the hardest part of the presentation was stopping the content conferences! Everyone was having such a good time being writers in their own language and having writing to share and discuss, that they didn't want to stop!

Five Writing Lessons (FWL)  Collaborating with TISLL has shown SELI how to make its Five-Writing-Lessons project work. This project been a struggle. After the first two successful units, in Kuranko and Krio, we could not seem to move forward. Even repeated radio announcements did not attract educated Sierra Leoneans to this opportunity of becoming writers (and potentially one day, authors) in their own languages.

By way of contrast, TISLL already operates literacy centers in six languages where adults and young people gain literacy in their mother tongues. TISLL also has literacy materials and the expertise to teach literacy. It is the only organization in the country that works exclusively with indigenous languages. The difference is that unlike the SELI FWL program, TISLL literacy classes teach initial, beginning literacy.  But what a great opportunity this provides us!  Literacy that is not maintained, can be lost.  What better way to empower and motivate TISLL's newly literate students than to include them in a writing workshop?

SELI is excited to be partnering with TISLL, and hope our contributors to the Five Writing Lessons project agree.