Case Study: Strengthening Early Grade Reading Through Teacher Capacity Building
“I want my students to have a strong foundation in reading skills,” shared Yib Yayi, a Grade 1 teacher at Thkaul Andet Primary School.
At just 23 years old, Ms. Yayi is one of the youngest teachers at her school, yet her passion for creativity and student engagement stands out. Her grade 1 class has 46 students who are just beginning their first step to Khmer alphabet and writing their first letters. Managing such a large class while ensuring every child stays attentive and supported is no easy task. It demands patience, energy, and innovative teaching approaches.
Recognizing that Grade 1 is a crucial foundation for the students’ future academic success, Ms. Yayi is committed to helping learners build strong reading and writing skills early on. That’s why she adopted the Reading Package methodology which is a set of structured and interactive teaching techniques for grade 1 to grade 3 in primary level.
She was first introduced to this methodology in 2022 when she officially began her teaching career. However, at first, the implementation was challenging. Newly added activities weren’t easy to integrate, and since she was new to this, she wasn’t confident at the time. But instead of giving up, she pushed forward.
In 2024, she had the opportunity to participate again in the Reading Package training supported by RFCD, a partner of ActionAid Cambodia under the CCOSC program, which focuses on enhancing teachers’ professional capacity.
With newfound knowledge from the second training, she grew more confident and creative. She began designing her own visual aids, preparing lessons on her laptop sometimes to show guided reading videos. These efforts began to make changes in her classroom.
“As I continue using the Reading Package, I always discover new ideas to make learning fun,” she explained.
Today, her students are more engaged, more confident, and show noticeable progress in identifying alphabet, making sentences correctly, reading short readings and understand the meaning of them, and participating in classroom activities.
Although applying the methodology requires additional time and effort, Ms. Yayi believes the results are worth it.
“Most of my students can read better after I applied the process of this reading package fully. They even begin to like reading now”, she shares proudly.
Not only that, but teachers in higher grades such as Grade 2 and Grade 3 who are teaching students who graduated from Ms. Yayi’s class have also noticed the incredible change. They’ve expressed admiration for how the majority of her students developed a strong reading foundation, which has made their classes easier as well.
She hopes that by establishing this strong foundation now, her students will advance into higher grades with confidence and curiosity. She also hopes to receive more learning materials such as an LCD projector, a TV, or a laptop to make the Reading Package even more interactive and effective for her young students.