My Nonprofit Reviews

On December 2018, a range of remedial resources was made available by the Hands Across the Sea non-profit organization to the Ciceron Secondary School for our use. We have been utilizing the resources for lessons at the Form One and Two Level. It was determined that these resources would be better suited for use during Language and Communication classes and within the Special Education Classes because of

a) The small size of those classes
b) the nature of the resources and the areas which they targeted

This meant that each student in the class would have access to the materials and teachers would be able to provide targeted individual assistance to each student. The materials were well received by teachers and students alike. Among their favourites were the Bananagrams, Bingo Games, Sentence Building Tiles and the Decode Readers.

One of the major issues plaguing our schools is that of poor literacy. With the remedial resources at our disposal, teaching various concepts became easier. Gradually students developed a greater competency in reading, writing, spelling, and comprehension. The Decode Reader Set in particular, provided teachers with an opportunity at identifying students who required early remediation. Most importantly there was an increased potential for a boost in instruction strategies as teachers were able to help students accurately read basic words. Mini spelling assessments usually followed upon completion of a book as well as the exercises in the teacher manual.

The Sentence Building Tiles have been extremely valuable in helping students write better sentences. The Sentence-Building Tiles Set includes magnetic foam, color-coded word tiles plus sixteen punctuation tiles that can be combined to build thousands of meaningful sentences. Children develop reading fluency, understanding of word relationships, parts of speech, and beginning writing skills as they build simple sentences and practice reading them. This resource targets skills in the areas of fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, and writing.

Considering the success of the previous package, we were quite elated when we received another package on January 2020. The books are students friendly, age and culturally appropriate. They touched on such a wide variety of topics that students found it easy to find one which suited their interests. Since our goal is to encourage reading, in the hopes of improving literacy among other essential skills, the books were a refreshing addition to our resources.

On behalf of the Ciceron Secondary School, I would like to express gratitude to Hands Across the Sea for undertaking this initiative in St Lucia. Your resources have made teaching and learning fun, interactive and efficient. We look forward to your continued support.

Ms. Melika Jules
Special Educational Needs Teacher
Ciceron Secondary School
St. Lucia