Rising demand for accommodations puts focus on teacher training

As efforts intensify to improve literacy levels among youth, a veteran educator has called for greater support for students with learning difficulties, including more specially trained teachers to meet their needs.

Founder of the Astra Babb Reading Clinic, Dr Astra Babb, said while teachers receive training to educate the typical learner, many require additional specialised instruction to effectively support students with exceptionalities.

As she opened a five-week summer reading programme at the Barbados Community College on Monday, Dr Babb told Barbados TODAY that more must be done to equip teachers with the skills needed to work with children who learn differently.

“All the teachers are not trained in how to teach children with autism, really,” she said. “When the teachers go to get trained, they are more or less focused on the typical child at the training institution, but I think I’m hearing now that the Government is putting programmes in place for teachers to have more information on how to teach these children.”

There has been growing demand for examination accommodations, with the most recent Barbados Secondary School Entrance Examination recording 240 requests for special consideration this year, compared with 194 last year and 183 the year before.

Juanita Brathwaite-Wharton, a senior psychologist in the education ministry’s Student Support Services Division, has previously told Barbados TODAY that the increase reflects greater awareness among parents and teachers about the needs of children requiring additional support:

“More people are requesting psychological assessments, which usually give you an indication of where the child is at, what the child needs in order to thrive in the academic and any other sphere that impacts the learning. Having had those assessments, parents are now advocating for accommodations, not just for exams, but in class.”

She also called for additional professional development for teachers to better support students with exceptionalities, noting that every classroom includes children with diverse learning needs.

Children with learning difficulties often require specialist tutors and teaching approaches because they process information differently from their peers, Dr Babb said.

“Those children require specialist tutors because the brain does not function like the typical child’s brain, so the teachers have to understand how to teach these children,” she said.

She welcomed reports that the government was expanding training opportunities for teachers, saying such initiatives would strengthen the education system’s ability to meet the needs of all students.

The veteran educator also highlighted the continued demand for the reading clinic, revealing that parents were still calling on Monday morning hoping to secure places for their children despite the programme already exceeding its intended capacity.

Although she initially planned to enrol a maximum of 100 students, Dr Babb said overwhelming demand pushed the figure to about 130.

“So I said that we would cut off at 100. Right now, I think we’re at 130, and that’s it.”

(LG)