By: SONIA A. LABRADOR – CUPANG INTEGRATED SCHOOL
There’s an old proverb saying, “The first step is always the hardest.” And this is very true when it comes to the learning process, particularly in the early stages of a child’s life as a student. For several generations, the majority of primary learners have struggled with the first step of their academic journey – reading.
Thus, as the reading coordinator of Cupang Elementary School, I devised a five-month course Action Reading Plan to help all students improve their reading capabilities. This plan was consist of several intervention activities to reach out to students and enable them to maintain a reading habit. In five months, a cycle of practice exercises and assessments revolving around these intervention activities was planned to be implemented in specific time intervals. With this, the students are expected to achieve a higher category of mastery based on Phil-IRI’s categorization of readers and create a long-term reading habit.
To achieve the goals of the Action Reading Plan, we found out that the students must be introduced first to habitual reading. That’s why we formulated Brigada Pagbasa. This activity was to monitor the daily reading practice of students through a progress log for about a month. Then, when the reading had been incorporated into a child’s routine, the facilitators, with the help of the parents and guardians, were already able to implement the Project DEAR (Drop Everything And Read). In this activity, children were given a specific time of the day when they should do their reading practice which strengthens the habit that they picked up from the first activity. After that, we followed up with more activities like Story Telling and Pajama Party to twist their reading practice and engage their household members in their learning process. This was to let the children think that reading is not a burden but a fun way to learn. Lastly, when the students seemed to have absorbed the habit of reading, we added a challenge by launching competitions; some of these were Ang Batang Kwentista sa Panahon ng Pandemya and Search for the Best Reading Corner at Home. With these types of competition, students could gain confidence with their newly-acquired skills and showcase their growth. Moreover, it could give them a rewarding sensation, enabling them to love reading even more.
The reading facilitators did additional activities like community projects and outreaches to reach more children in the remote areas of Balanga City. Although these children could not participate in the totality of the Action Reading Plan, we thought that we could inspire and ignite them to start reading on their own.
We deemed these activities to be effective for the students of Cupang Elementary School after evaluating the results of the Action Reading Plan. However, there are several more intervention activities out there that can help other schools achieve what we have achieved. Besides, we can always think of some creative ways to make reading fun.
Nowadays, since distance learning is the new trend, it would be hard for the conventional way of teaching reading to thrive. That’s why we need to find ways to reach them out and help them start their reading journey because their first steps would be their hardest.