By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Based on two recent Facebook chats, I found out that the phenomena of public school pupils reaching the intermediate grades without having mastered reading or not being able to read at all in some instances is not unique to Kalinga.
Tolentino Acquioben, a colleague at the Kalinga Christian Learning Center (now Saint Tonis College) way back in 1985 who was principal of the Polilio Adventist Institute in Polilio Island, Quezon from 1987 to 1997 and currently serving as committee chairman on Curriculum Development of the school, opened up as follows: “Being in the high school curriculum development for more than 40 years, proliferation of non-readers who graduated from the public schools has been noticed in the passing of years. I did not conduct any study as to the causes of this curriculum failure but I have that assumption that the continuous experimentation of the DepEd by frequently changing the curriculum in the elementary level could be the cause of the problem. The problem is aggravated by the wrong orientation of teachers in the area of instructional management and implementation. Almost all teachers of today are products of the so called subject-centered curriculum wherein most of the time they give quizzes and exams for the main purpose of determining the grades of the learners. After giving the grades for a given period, they proceed to another lesson without doing something for those who are less receptive with the implemented curriculum approach and method of instruction.”
On the other hand, under the student-centered curriculum, exams are given for the main purpose of evaluating the strength and weaknesses of the learners so as to innovate some measures to boost the strength of every learner. The slow learners are given special attention to also develop their own skills as this type of curriculum is geared to develop every skill of a learner. As most teachers prefer to adopt the subject-centered curriculum in classroom instruction, non-readers are forwarded to the secondary level as a result of failures of teachers and the system being advocated by the DepEd with its continuous experimentation.”
Tolentino added that in the last school year, of their 87 freshmen, they had three non-readers explaining they have an average of four non-readers a year. When I asked about what he means by “non-reader,” he said they know their ABC “but can’t read two combined syllables.”
When I asked a niece who teaches in a public elementary school somewhere in Metro Manila if they have frustration level readers in their school in the intermediate grades, she said they do and that’s the reason they conduct enhancement programs during the school year. She explained that for poor readers in the primary grades, they have summer camp classes.
According to a presentation on the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI), an assessment tool to determine the reading proficiency of elementary school pupils using tests which measure their reading speed and comprehension in both English and Filipino, frustration level is the lowest reading level where the pupil wants to avoid reading. Two local educators would, however, explain to me that the term does not mean inability to read per se but just having reading skills that is below one’s mental age.
When I asked my niece the factors for the presence of frustration level readers in their higher grades, she gave this mouthful: “In my opinion, the factors are the following: 1. Class size. It is hard to teach a child how to read when you have 50 pupils; 2. Poor follow up at home. Parents don’t teach their children at home. Children spend only a few hours in school; 3. Nutrition. We have students coming to school who have not yet eaten so it is hard for them to follow the lesson; 4. Poverty. We have pupils who try to earn money for their food by vending which leads to absenteeism and worst, stopping coming to school in the middle of the school year. That’s also what happens the following school year; 4. Work overload for teacher. We have a lot of clerical jobs to do so how do we find time to do remedial reading before or after class when just to prepare Power Point and DLL for the class already consumes our time? What about the reports we have to submit ASAP? 5. Classrooms. Not every classroom is conducive for learning. Just to provide the so-called Education for All, public schools accept and accept enrolees. Imagine one standard classroom divided into two just to accommodate everyone; 6. Behavior of the pupils nowadays has changed. No matter how the teacher wants to teach and discipline pupils, she cannot do it. Why? The child could talk back and even curse her. The worse is the child could even file a case against her so rather than lose her license, she just lets the child do what he pleases; 7. Resources. Not all materials are provided by the DepEd especially in the production of instructional materials. There are still a lot of factors, uncle. If people would just listen to our rants and assist us so we could provide quality education.
And besides in the past, we already teach reading in prep. If you scan the curriculum of kindergarten, you cannot find reading and when they come to Grade 1, there are so many subjects. Now how could the teacher focus on reading when there is a given time for each subject? I just hope that one day, all the blame will not be heaped on us teachers. The problem is not all about teacher factor.”
My niece’s temperature rose by several degrees more when I asked if there really is a DepEd mass promotion policy. She said: “I haven’t personally seen the memo but I keep hearing about it, uncle. That’s also an issue here. They keep on telling us to fail pupils but we have to prove that we did everything like giving remedial sessions and doing home visitations but how can we conduct remedial and home visitation when we have an overload of paperwork and we have seminar during weekends?”
Chatting with Tolentino and my teacher niece strengthened my belief that the DepEd is led by featherbrained people who know next to nothing about educating children.**
