BATU: Number Games for Teaching Reading

Dra. Prihastutik, formerly a teacher at SDN Punten 1 in Bumiaji subdistrict in Batu, has now become the School Principal at SDN Tulungrejo 3. This is the story of her innovative teaching and how she achieved a perfect score of five in the 2006 national 'Successful Teacher' competition, which took place in Jakarta from 21 to 26 November 2006.

Ibu Prihastutik said, "PAKEM, as it has been developed in the MBE program makes teachers creative and try out innovations. As a grade 1 teacher, I did some Class Based Action Research using number games.

I wrote up the results under the title 'Improving the Early Reading and Writing Skills of Grade 1 Students at SDN Punten 1, Batu by Using Number Games'. I sent the report to the Successful Teacher competition.

After three lessons using number games there was a significant improvement in the students' performance. As well as improvements in the students' work, there was also a change in their attitude during lessons.

That changes were (i) an increased interaction bet-ween groups; (ii) students were more competent to express their opinions; and (iii) the children were able to present their work confidently in front of the class.

Equipment and materials: The teacher made a set of number games, which consisted of a sheet on which there were numbers, which had to be exchanged for letters and there were cards with numbers and letters on as follows: 1 = a, 2 = b, 3 = c, ..., 25 = y, 26 = z.

How to play:

In the first lesson: 1) The students played in a group. The 5 students in each group got different tasks. One student did the writing, one student called out the numbers and three students held the cards (26 cards shared between 3 students). The student called out a number and the students holding the cards had to find that number and then say the letter.

The student doing the writing wrote down the letter on the game sheet. This continued until the game sheet was full. Finally, the letters written on the game sheet were made into syllables, words and sentences.

2) Groups of children who finished the game quickly and whose answers were correct were the winners. The three best groups were chosen based on the amount of time taken and the number of correct answers. 3) As a sign of recognition of their achievement, the best three groups were given a star.

During the second and third lessons the students still sat in groups but worked as individuals. Each student was given a game sheet without number-letter cards. So the students were required to memorize the number-letter pairs.

KEBUMEN: Despite BOS, Community Still Supportive

MI Ma'arif Banjarsari is one of the MBE partner schools situated in Gombong subdistrict. There are seven teachers, including 2 civil servants and 5 volunteer teachers. The school has 74 students, which is relatively few. Despite this MI Ma'arif Banjarsari is enthusiastic and is working hard to improve both in terms of knowledge and spiritually.

It gets full support from the surrounding community. Now that schools get operational funding (BOS) from the government, MI Ma'arif can breathe easily, although the funds do not cover all its educational needs.

KEBUMEN: Learning with a Wall Magazine in Ambal

SDN Benerkulon in Ambal subdistrict, Kebumen is an MBE partner school that is implementing PAKEM as a model of teaching. At the start, the school had lots of problems in implementing PAKEM. Facilitators and consultants said, "Changing everything is not as easy as turning over your hand"