Success By Six
The Tryall Fund is committed to developing and implementing the model program, “Success by Six”, for preschoolers (3-5 years old) and their caregivers. It encompasses education, literacy, health and nutrition. The Fund believes early intervention will give the children of Hanover the best chance for success, and will make the greatest impact on our larger community. The Fund adopted its first school, Sandy Bay Community Basic School (SBCBS) in January 2010.
PROGRAMS OF SUCCESS BY SIX
Success by Six uses a phonetic approach to teaching reading and we have had great success with the Process Phonics program. The Tryall Fund/SBS has formed a Partnership with the Worcester School in Danbury, Ct. which has broadened our horizons. They introduced a math concepts program to our curriculum and gave workshops both in person and virtually to help familiarize our teachers with the new material. Our nutrition program offers a daily healthy lunch as well as nutrition workshops for the cooks, parents and caregivers. We have a Stay and Play Tennis program once a week with Coach Danny from the Tennis Center. In addition, there are teacher training seminars, parent/ caregiver workshops and Jacque Smith works to help our Basic Schools achieve compliance with Jamaican government standards. This year in January we added the very successful Primary Colors Art initiative with visiting artist Bob Oller. The Tryall Fund recently partnered with Hanover Charities to build a much needed playground at Hopewell Basic School. The addition of this playground has not only positively impacted the daily lives of our students, it allowed our model school, Hopewell Basic, to be certified by the Early Childhood Commission for attaining 100% compliance in all legal standards. We are very proud of this momentous achievement!
Success By Six
Impact on Nutrition
The Success by Six initiative identified poor eating habits as a deterrent to learning. Our students were primarily consuming unhealthy snacks and drinks high in sugar resulting in poor behavior and lack of concentration. In order to change this situation the Fund engaged a dietician to develop a program which included the following:
A week long seminar for cooks and staff which included cooking lessons and site visits to each school.
Provided appliances, kitchen equipment, utensil, dishes and cutlery.
Generated nutritious menus using local ingredients to serve meals familiar to our students.
Developed a partnership with Food for the Poor to provide free >food which is distributed to our five schools.
Encouraged “fruit” Wednesdays when the students bring fruit for their snack.
The Fund continues to conduct nutrition seminars for our new schools and ongoing support for our existing schools.
Success By Six Process Phonics
Process Phonics is based on principles of renowned neuropsychologists and scientists with practical application for over 25 years. The program comes with a long history of positive results in teaching students the skills needed to build a foundation to become good readers. Extensive research tells us that teaching phonemic awareness in a multi-sensory way is the single best way to successfully teach children to read. The uniqueness and power of the program is that it can significantly impact on grade level students as well as students with special needs and adults.
Process Phonics can easily be taught to groups of teachers and requires minimal supplies to start and almost no on-going costs. The program is highly affordable for schools and districts that want students to begin with reading readiness skills but without resources to purchase expensive programs. Process Phonics introduces students to “toy” objects that teach initial sounds. From there students learn to blend sounds even before letter names.
In 2013, a group of retired teachers and an administrator came to Jamaica to work with pre-schools in Hanover. The group provided all the hands-on, non-consumable materials for students and teachers. They also provided DVD’s and digital material to help with the presentation. While the initial work was with the Sandy Bay and Hopewell pre-schools 3 other schools and are now fully integrated in this programme. The group of teachers now visit our schools 2-3 times a year depending on our needs.
Success by Six – Stay+Play
The “Success by Six” initiative includes the Stay+Play program that was developed by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). The Stay+Play philosophy is to introduce young children to an individualized sport and encourages them to become skillful while enjoying tennis. The students experience success when they learn to serve, rally and score. This program teaches 4 and 5 year olds the game of tennis while having fun. The students use larger and softer balls, smaller nets and smaller courts that are scaled to their age and makes tennis easy. Tennis helps build eye, hand and foot coordination. This program also develops listening skills and the students learn to follow oral instruction.
This programme is now in 5 schools serving 100 students plus the 78 that are now in primary school. This is one more tool we use to teach skills that will follow our preschoolers as they move to primary school.
Primary Colors with Bob OLLER
As a new initiative added to Success by Six in January 2020, Primary Colors met with great success and favorable reaction for visiting artist/initiator, Bob Oller of Williamsburg, VA.
At the schools, artist Oller split crayon drawing and watercolor painting into separate sessions with energy release exercises in between. Consistent reinforcement of shapes, colors, creativity, children’s uniqueness and neatness led to happy accomplishments by each child. Class size ranged from 12-20, composed primarily of 5 year olds.
Board members supported the new initiative by donating packs of crayons, watercolor kits with brushes, colored pencils, 110 and 120 lb. drawing paper and custom created Tryall Fund tie smocks; all to be used and retained in the schools. Thank you to Bob Oller, who traveled at his own expense to inaugurate the program and will do the same when he returns in January, 2021.