BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – As a part of nation-wide efforts to enhance education, The United States through USAID is providing training for 1,000 primary school teachers from 80 schools in Chui, Jalal-Abad, Naryn and Issyk-Kul oblasts to improve students’ reading skills. The teachers will receive 72 hours of training in the latest reading instruction methods recognized by the Kyrgyz Academy of Education. Teachers who successfully complete the training will receive certification to use the new teaching methods in their classrooms. These seminars are part of a USAID project to improve reading comprehension and proficiency for children in Kyrgyzstan.

This training will enable teachers to master proven reading instruction approaches to improve reading skills among students in grades 1-4. January 11-22, 2016, the participating teachers are focusing on basic components of reading instruction, as well as ways to foster fluent reading and comprehension in their young students.

"This 5-day training helped me to evaluate my teaching skills. I compared my experience with teachers from other schools and realized that some of them use techniques that I have never seen before. It was very useful and interesting to learn about them," said Ryskan Tikimbaeva, a teacher in Spartacus primary school of Jayil district, after finishing the first 40 hours of training.

USAID has already provided training for more than 9,000 teachers across the country. 3,600 of these teachers have received Kyrgyz Academy of Education certification.  In partnership with the Kyrgyz Ministry of Education and Science, USAID has helped set new standards for reading, developing methodological guidelines for schools, evaluating students’ reading skills, and organizing community events to promote reading.

According to trainer Olga Dudkina, it was especially beneficial to have the participation of teachers from schools for children with special needs. "In addition to the teachers from regular schools, we also have teachers from a boarding school for kids with hearing and sight problems, who rarely participate in any kind of seminars or training.  For them, our training courses were new, and I saw their eyes light up," said Dudkina.

More than 250,000 students throughout Kyrgyzstan will benefit from the USAID Reading Together Project, which partners with the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Culture, Information and Tourism of the Kyrgyz Republic.

This project is one of many U.S. cooperative programs in the Kyrgyz Republic.  For more information about USAID, please visit www.usaid.gov/kyrgyz-republic