The project’s team of dedicated literacy coaches, who are normally responsible for visiting teachers and supporting them to use the new methods and materials developed under the project, began to set up Facebook Messenger groups with each teacher and parents in their class.
Every day the literacy coach sends the story and the appropriate activity for that grade along with a voice message to explain the activity for that grade. Parents can ask questions to the teacher and coach, and many have been posting videos of their children reading and writing, helping them feel connected to their classmates.
[My child’s] teacher added me to the Facebook messenger group and it’s easy as I can see the activity each day, and listen to the voice message and understand how I can help my child at home each day.” –Mother of a grade 2 child in Kampong Thom province.
Anticipating long school closures, the project has begun to adapt students’ regular lesson content for use on Facebook. Working with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS), the project team developed online materials that students and parents can use to learn new content that would have been covered in coming months in the classroom. Different lessons for each of the three grades are posted every day, which are also shared with parents, both on the public Facebook page, and in the messenger groups along with voice messages.