GraphoLean in Tanzania Education

Most of Children with disabilities especially with reading or intellectual impairment are often stigmatized and viewed as unable to learn and so are rarely encouraged to go to school. Sometimes, they’re even hidden away by their families. School environments are often physically inaccessible, teachers are not trained in how to engage all their students in a regular classroom and ensuring equal access of education to all regardless of their abilities and disabilities.

Difficult in reading to children with reading and intellectual impairment and inadequate of mastering spelling pronunciation give motives to find solution on this case.  Brain is the engine of the body; it initiates language acquisition and development, it develops adaptation through practice and repetition of things in several time the process known as sensory adaptation. In Tanzania children with reading impairment uses more than three years studying preliminary program before they join to primary education this is because of poor learning environment in terms of methods and techniques used to teach them. Now days there is no official qualified syllabus to teach these learners. These learners needs much attention and advanced technology to make them learn easy. Children with intellectual disability they can learn good when we provide clear strategies and innovations that make them enjoy learning.

In order to solve this problem to learners with reading and intellectual disability we will use GraphoGame. GraphoGame is a child-friendly mobile and desktop game that teaches children letter and letter-sound combinations.  GraphoGame adapts to user skill levels and provides actionable learning analytics for parents and teachers.  GraphoGame has its origins in dyslexia interventions, but benefits all children including with intellectual disability in developing their first and most fundamental reading skills. By playing the game, children learn first the basic letters and their sounds. Through a series of levels, they gradually move on to short and increasingly longer words. GraphoLearn dynamically adapts the difficulty level to the child’s unique ability level. Positive feedback sustains the child’s engagement in playing for sufficient time for learning to be established. Learning to read with GraphoLearn is fun and easy, so that the child is able to play it alone. It is like an additional teacher who helps children to learn important letter sounds correspondences, which are the building blocks of reading skills. 

The solution will serve 1000 children with reading impairment from 20 integrated primary schools in Tanzania. The aim of this innovation is to make easy learning to children with dyslexia in acquisition and mastering of language. This eLearning will involve teachers to monitor and evaluate the stages of using GraphoGames. nowadays, children with reading disabilities including with intellectual disability in Tanzania are taught in a difficult teaching and learning environment due to less number of teachers having abilities to care and teach learners of this category of disability, also teaching and learning methods depends on teachers intentions because the ministry of education science and technology does not provide the authorized syllabus in teaching these learners. children with reading disabilities needs more attention and care while their in classroom in order to enjoy their studies. even in a school having less number of teachers, GraphoGame will help much in teaching because a child will learn independently as a solution rewards based on the answers presented by learners.

Organisation of special needs education teachers(OSNET) Is a registered non profit and government organisation to serve people with special needs including those with disabilities. OSNET team composed of staffs that advocate and teach learners with disabilities including children with intellectual and reading impairment. they are strongly committed to care these learners because they live in inclusive community where people with intellectual disabilities are among of community members. almost all staffs lives with people with this target group because in integrated primary schools we are working, children with reading disability are found. GraphoGame will be installed in parents smartphones to enable community participation in helping their learners to continue learning even when are are at home.

students' failure to understand reading properly when they are in the pre-primary and regular primary schools in Tanzania is leading to a significant deterioration in education. Many students have repeated classes because of a lack of good comprehension, leading to dropouts for some children. The aim of bringing this solution is to enable these children to gain a quick and interesting understanding when they are at school and at home because graphogame is like an additional teacher for a student. we are aiming at modifying teaching and learning strategies through this innovation.

First; Graphogame is a tool of technology that aimed in supporting literacy acquisition, and solving challenges related to illiteracy dyslexia.

second; GraphoGame has ability to exploit knowledge and skills regarding literacy learning and support among parents, professionals, policy makers and the general public.

third; GraphoGame is the evidence based based game of learning that help learning of reading across different languages, cultures and geographical areas.

the solution will be applied first in 20 integrated primary schools found in Tanzania mainland, then in the next years and five years, OSNET will ensure the innovation reach to all special needs teachers that teach student with reading and intellectual disabilities by training and seminars that will bring to the following impacts; 

first, to have quality and equitable education to children with intellectual disabilities in all Tanzania premises.

second; to have the society that understand the needs of children regardless of their disabilities and abilities.

third; to ensure full participation of learners with intellectual and reading disability by facilitating learner centered approach.

fourth; Advancement of Tanzania education through use of science and technology including GraphoGames.

GraphoGames have ability to save records of children based on their reading performance. it has different levels based on complexity of comprehension from alphabets to words. therefore to measure indicators of development needs to track reading progress in every day to see the numbers of students  whether able to read the provided task correctly. The higher the level of GraphoGames reached, the higher the understanding reading level to a child.

in order to make this solution applicable we needs to have financial and human resources as inputs that initiates proper activities. The integration of GraphoGames in schools together with different monitoring and evaluation activities will lead to easy language acquisition of language to learners, this output will provide good learning environment as an outcome and finally proper and quality education to the entire society regardless of individual abilities and disabilities. In order to ensure sustainability of this innovation, the school based clubs for GraphoLearn will be managed by school teachers to enhance continuity sharing of knowledge to hav better performance to children with dyslexia. all materials used during implementation will be remained at school.

 the core technology in this solution is the integration of GraphoLearn where we will use GraphoGmes application. GraphoGame is a child-friendly mobile and desktop game that teaches children letter and letter-sound combinations.  GraphoGame adapts to user skill levels and provides actionable learning analytics for parents and teachers.  GraphoGame has its origins in dyslexia interventions that helps all learners with reading disabilities in acquisition of language to enhance facilitative learning for good performance. the application

in applying this solution, the human rights and gender based approach will be used. OSNET staff have people with disabilities, people without disabilities, men, women and youths. they both participate fully with high respect in one another. this situation makes to be more attracted to the community as

 they live in inclusive society while helping in caring, advocating and teaching individuals with special needs.

services provided by OSNET is clients entered as beneficiaries benefit more as they are given education, empowerment, in equity and fair treatment in society.

Financial plan in our organisation, OSNET will use various donations from different areas. We will expand our funding base through external initiatives including proposal writing and through internal initiatives by member’s contributions of an organization which have been given out once a year. Also OSNET is able accepting legal gifts from anyone willing to support children with special needs.

Since 2017 where GraphoGames introduced in our organisation and applied in teaching children with dyslexia in two regions, the school based clubs were introduced to support sustainability of the project. Special needs teachers supervised the entire progress of the GraphoLean together with OSNET staffs. mobile phones installed GraphoGames were remained at schools to enhance  continuity learning. Also Special  needs teachers together with OSNET team visited parents that have GraphoGames in their smartphones