“In the written words, we discover our voices, A powerful tool, a pathway of choices”.
These are lines from the poem written by Anita Phineas, that won first place in the 2023 International Literacy Day (ILD) Regional Poetry Competition.
My name is Ratieli Tora, The Pacific Community’s Educational Assessment Specialist – Literacy, and I have an extra special milestone to share at this year’s International Literacy Day (ILD) celebrations.
As part of SPC’s 2024 ILD celebrations scheduled for 5th September, we will be launching the collection of the poetry titled; Voices of the Pacific Youth: A literacy learning tool, featuring 20 of the poems submitted to the 2023 Regional Poetry Competition.
The publication is an intervention effort after the recent PILNA cycle findings highlighted that in reading, students still struggle with the high order skills of interpreting and critically analysing what they read. The recommendations presented herein aim to improve performance in reading by the next PILNA scheduled for 2025.
This collection hopes to equip teachers, educators and parents with literacy intervention techniques that could help students in the region to enhance their reading skills through reading poetry by following the suggested activities and notes provided in the booklet.
Apart from the technical components adapted through the finding of PILNA 2021, the content of the publication was sourced from the 2023 ILD Regional Poetry Competition focussing on the theme “Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Building the foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies”.
The poetry competition attracted numerous submissions from all parts of the blue Pacific continent. After analysing the poems through a competitive panel of judges, three winners were awarded.
Out of the 66 poems received through this competition, the top 20 poems have been compiled in the booklet that can now be used by teachers and educators to close the literacy gaps identified in PILNA.
By launching this intervention tool during our ILD celebrations, we hope that it will not only bring visibility to the region’s budding poets, but also promote the use of resources written by people from the Pacific to improve the literacy standards in the region.
The 20 poems are presented with illustrations and the booklet is divided into four sections, Orientation, Vocabulary, Comprehension and Free Use Poems. Each section has activities to assist teachers in motivating students to read poetry and to improve their reading skills.
We hope that the illustrations for each poem will help in the interpretation, and getting the messages across to the students while the teachers can use the tips and notes to help them in teaching reading and comprehension through poetry.
Apart from these benefits, one aspect that sets this poetry booklet apart, is that all poems in this collection are written by Pacific poets and the environments established through the poems are very familiar with the surroundings of the intended readers.
Although the booklet was derived from the finding of the PILNA 2021 cycle, which has a target group of Year 4 and Year 6 students, this booklet can be used by teachers at all levels to instil the foundations of literacy within our Pacific students.
The EQAP team looks forward to sharing this critical intervention tool ahead of the administration of PILNA next year and hope to see positive impacts on the performance in reading that will be generated through the Pacific’s largest assessment.
Happy International Literacy Day!
*The poetry booklet will be available following its launch on 5 September.*
