SJS 7 - Reading in Kazakhstan and Oceania

Source: Topping, Keith, et al. "Reading in Kazakhstan and Oceania." The Reading Teacher,

    vol. 60, no. 8, May 2007, p. 790. Student Resources in Context. Accessed 5

    Jan. 2017.

Authors: Keith Topping is a British journalist and author who is currently a professor of Education and Social Research at the University of Dundee in Scotland and an editor for the International Voices department.

Nina Golopyatova is an English teacher at a school in Kazakhstan.

Maureen Goodwin currently holds a position as a teacher in the Cook Islands.

Robin Peirce is a chair of the IRA International Development Committee of Oceania.

Summary: The article references several countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Oceania that are experiencing shortages of teachers and education resources. This article relates to many of the countries we have studied and ties them together with the issue of education. Each of these countries is likely to have its own reason for the lack of education, in Africa is it mostly a population issue, the part of the Middle East is currently in the hands of terrorist groups and others under harsh rule that prevents outside education, and Oceania suffers from lack of resources. These countries are failing to provide children with a basic skills such as reading and writing because of those issues. Kazakhstan has recently started Reading Days were created to promote the ability to read and to give people a better understanding of their history. In the Cook Islands there has been an effort to donate books to allow teachers to teach students how to read. The issue of illiteracy is there because currently the islands are mostly a speaking culture and people do not see a reason to read. However, it has been shown that reading can lead to students wanting to learn more and expand their studies to include a college degree. In Niue and Rarotonga students are learning to read, but most of the books donate are fiction and it is becoming increasingly difficult to read non-fiction books with a higher lexile level. The proposed solution was to provide photocopiers that would allow the people to write and print their own non-fiction books. Creating their own books gives the people a way to share their ancestors stories and their culture.

Analysis: Overall, if each country had a way to increase literacy people would receive higher education and bring more money into the country and in the end help the economy. The authors explain the situations in each country well, and are able to give the specific issues in each country while still focusing on the main problem of literacy and writing skills.