Southern Mindanao's reading program gets P21M funding assistance

DAVAO CIT, Philippines  - The Department of Education (DepEd) has included the 10 schools divisions of Southern Mindanao (SM) or Region 11 in the agency’s P21,034,000 financial assistance to its intensified reading program for elementary school children for the current school year.

DepEd Region 11 Director Susana Teresa Estigoy noted that Southern Mindanao is the only region in the Southern Philippines which was included under the DepEd Fund aid for reading program which also involved six regions in Luzon and one region in the Visayas.

The financial allocation, Estigoy said, was earmarked to strengthen the implementation of DepEd’s “Every Child A Reader Program” (ECARP), particularly on its three major components.

These components are listed in Luistro’s directive as Reading Recovery (RR), administration of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI), and development of the Philippine World Lists in English (PWLE) for first, second and third grade pupils in SM’s nine schools divisions.

Estigoy said region 11 is composed of the schools divisions of Davao del Sur, Davao City, Compostela Valley, Tagum City, Davao Oriental, Digos City, Davao del Norte, Panabo City, Island Garden City of Samal (IGACoS), and Mati City.

Quoting Luistro’s directive, Estigoy said Region 11’s ECARP support fund aid for Reading Recovery will be specifically utilized for setting up Regional Reading Recovery Centers (RRRCs), and refurbishment of existing vacant rooms, expenses on teachers’ training, and for visits to schools of teachers-in-training, monitoring visits relative to the enforcement of RR in the regional level, conducting advocacy activities, management and maintenance of database, and procurement of equipment and story books for schools children.

Estigoy said the DepEd chief’s order described the ECARP as a national program designed to make every pupil an independent reader and writer at the end of Grade 3 even as it provides a year-long training to teachers to make them independent solvers of literacy problems in their respective learning centers.

RR, an early literacy intervention that aims at reducing reading and writing difficulties in schools gives children who are beginning to fall behind in reading and writing, a second chance before their problems become complicated.

An assessment component of ECARP, the Phil-IRI is a nationally validated assessment tool for measuring the reading proficiency level of pupils in both English and Filipino languages, Luistro said, adding that the PWQLE is made up of the most frequently used words in English textbooks from Grades 1 to 3.

In effect, Estigoy enjoined all elementary school teachers and administrators in the area to effectively implement the ECARP and to wisely utilize the DepEd financial support in their respective stations to ensure that every learner in the first three grades would benefit from the program.

She also fielded division and regional education supervisors to closely monitor the enforcement of the special education plan in SM.