Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana Riding on the Crest of Truth
Last Updated on Tuesday, 15 March 2022, 20:21 by Denis Chabrol
A student Interacting with Graphogame App
The Graphogame literacy app touted as one of the best in the world is now available for Guyana’s school children who are four to nine years old, the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GTT) and STEMGuyana said Tuesday.
The app, which was recently rolled out in Jamaica’s primary education system, is now accessible locally through the collaboration between GTT and STEM Guyana.
GTT said linguists, neuropsychologists and speech pathologists from the Finland-based Grapho Group developed Graphogame after 25 years of research. Graphogame is an educational game, with proven efficacy in achieving basic literacy, equal to one-to-one teacher support, among children in the four to nine age group.
The company said the game has been used in Finland for the past 10 years and has subsequently been adopted in the United States, Jamaica and other countries, with impressive results.
The app is made available to all Guyanese school children courtesy of STEMGuyana, and is incorporated into the organization’s Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Tullow Oil funded Learning pod program. STEMGuyana has partnered with GTT Business Solutions in the game’s rollout phase of implementation by notifying parents via a sponsored national SMS campaign and virtual launch event.
Chief Executive Officer of STEMGuyana Karen Abrams
Commenting on the partnership, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for GTT Business Solutions, Orson Ferguson, said, “We continue to support innovative initiatives through organisations such as STEMGuyana towards our customer promise – innovate for all in our country.” He added, “The pandemic has definitely created a learning gap, however, we’ve provided data solutions to many communities to help lessen this impact; this collaboration is yet another support effort to ensure as we return to normalcy, students have that added element to ensure continuous learning.
“The pilot rollout in Jamaica has demonstrated that this app can play a very important role in bridging gaps in our early childhood education system, which are now widening as a result of COVID19,” said Simone Sobers, founder of WWKIDS, and sponsor responsible for Graphogame’s rollout in Jamaica.
“It is interactive, intuitive and user friendly, and best of all, it is free. Once downloaded, it can be played without connectivity and data, which is significant at a time when children may have increased access to devices through several governmental and private sector initiatives, but still lack connectivity and have no access to data,” she continued.
Parents and students can download the Graphogame App FREE on any device by accessing the following link www.STEMGuyana.com/graphogame.