Herrera, Jackie D.

Date: July 31, 2012 Developmental Reading Tuesday/ 5:30- 7:30 pm Article 2 A Nation of Non- Reader- by Juan Miguel Luz I. Synthesis The problem of reading lies at the heart of why the Philippines are so uncompetitive in the world economy and why so many people continue to live in poverty or barely escape it. Someone once marked that we are not a nation of non-reader but we are nation of story-tellers. Our culture is passed through by mouth and not from written data. This perhaps is the reason that most of Filipino receives most information through television and radio compare to newspapers, magazine and other reading materials. Theres difference in between literacy and reading. Literacy is level of competence while reading is skill. There is a two type of literacy, one is simple and the other is functional. Simple literacy is the ability of a person to write and read with understanding a simple message in any language or dialect. Functional literacy is a higher literacy level thats include not only reading and writing skills but also numeracy which leads to higher order thinking that allows persons to participate in more meaningfully in life situations requiring a reasonable capacity to communicate in written language. The most direct measure of functional literacy is the ability to follow written tasks. It is also the indicator of competence when it comes to adults in workforce. There was a survey that tells that the simple literacy of 10 years old and older in between mid 90s to 2003 period. Girl has higher simple literacy compare to the boys and the Metro Manila has the highest literacy rate and the ARMM in Mindanao has the lowest. Overall, simple literacy level drop from 0.5 percent from 1994 to 2003 which mean that if the population is 80 million, 6.6 percent are the illiterate Filipino. But simple literacy rate might be overstated because the result is not taken by a test but as a survey. If thats so, most of people would not admit that they are illiterate to avoid embarrassment. According to Prof. Dina Ocampo of

University of the Philippines, literacy is about the ability to construct and create meaning from or through written language. Therefore, the true measure of literacy must be functional and not simple. The result of functional literacy rate in our country is more realistic because it measures using test not survey question. According to the result, adult closest to college graduation age showed functional literacy rate of 90 percent but the school aged children showed rates far below the 100 percent that would be assumed since functional literacy is based on grasp and facility with 3Rs (read, writing,arithmetic) that we hope children are mastering but according to the data of per age group, those who are incoming grade 4 student is dropping out of the school. Grade 3 is the most critical year in terms of schooling because it is the year when the facility to read, write and do the four arithmetic operations with competence are expected. Dropping out before this level becomes a major contributor in lack of functional literacy which in turn has a negative impact in on adults and eventually in their work productivity. It should be at the end of third grade, the student mastered the 3Rs competence but in most of school, this is not happening. Low-level literacy means poor reading skills. The Phil-IRI (Philippine InformalReading Inventory) test is an oral test given to a pupil to measure reading ability. Independent reading level- pupil can read with ease and without the help or guidance of teachers. Instructional reading level- pupil can profit with instruction Frustrated reading level- pupils shows behaviour of withdrawing from reading situations and commit multiple types of errors in oral reading.

But Phil-IRI is not a robust test and tends to score in favor of the poor reader. An easier test defeats the purpose of measuring. If Metro Manila shows a higher literacy level than the rest of the country but low levels of leading competence, we can expect that the remaining region has lower reading scores.

This is the main problem: with poor reading comes poor learning In high school, science and math learning require a degree of ability since much of what is learned is actually self- taught. Since Filipino schoolchildren shown low level of reading, science and math proficiency is similarly poor because of what is learned is not self-driven or internalized but rather passed from the teacher to the student in old-school rote learning fashion. Poor reading is also a reflection of poor language proficiency, whether it is English or Filipino. It is visible in the language proficiency of public school teacher. Because of this, Education Secretary Edilberto De Jesus embarked in nationwide campaign to raise the language proficiency of public school teachers beginning with high school teachers. Starting with 53,000 secondary teachers teaching English, Science, and Mathematics- languages that require a good degree in of English communication skills- a Self-Assessment Test in English was administered to determine the proficiency level of these teachers. Only 19 percent passed with the score of at least 75 percent correct. The majority of teachers score at least 65 percent correct. The key to learning is better reading skills. The ability to write and read in any language or dialect is what is important. From, this lifelong learning or survival skill, one can

develop the ability of learning to learn for life. These are the important elements for building individual competence and achievement that can be translated in the future into a competitive work force. However, it is differ in workplace. An English language skill in workplace is needed when the boss is foreign or the work system is adopted abroad. This situation makes English language a critical factor. Because of more stressed in English language in early education, the ability to learn more math and science content is sacrificed which affect the productivity and competitiveness of Filipino worker and managers. While vast of majority of our public school struggle to manage deficiency and manage deficiencies and shortages in the system, there is still hope.

There are different programs created in aim to improve our literacy and reading level. Those are the following: Models of excellence from the program called Books for the Barrios collects book from US and shipped to the Philippines elementary school for their libraries and reading program. Words of the Day- program that help sharpen vocabulary set that will equip very young children to read. ESKAN (Eskwelahan sang Katawhan Negros)- district level reading programs to improve on the achievement of pupils in town. Poor performance is due to lack of student-friendly instructional materials. To solve this, Grade 1 teachers participate in 15 days training on reading. Sa Aklat Sisikat (SAS) Foundation- program that focus on Grade 4 pupils because it does not really teach reading, rather, it works on a school age group that already know how to read in order to build a reading habit. Reading program have been set up in both public and private school. But in order to develop a reading habit, school children need books that tell stories in interesting manner while developing a broader vocabulary. The availability of library in a school is also important. With the help of different people and organization who is aiming for a quality education outcome, a system wide approach to literacy, reading and learning should be implemented so that we can achieve the so called nation of readers.

II.

Insight I commend the article. It is written base on facts and supported with different data. It is also fearless because it tackles the one of the major problem of Philippine education, which is lack of readers. Not just simple readers, who can determine, read, and know the meaning of the words or sentences that they read but the whole package that enable us to have skills and competence. It is also serve as an eye opener for people which believe that literacy can be achieve entirely by knowing how to read and write. It shows us

that reading and literacy is not as simple as we think. There are competence and skills we must achieve so that we can consider ourselves as a literate person. Literacy which divided into two kinds: the simple and functional literacy. As an incoming teacher, I must be able to grasp the high level of competency in reading and literacy as a preparation for my teaching career. I must also develop students who have a good reading habit because an excellent reading means an excellent learning. The article also inspires me that through different reading programs, our literacy level may improve which will help us to be competitive in the world of economy and freedom from poverty. This reading program if well implemented may bring us to functional literacy, which enables us to call our country a nation of readers.

III.

Implications to Teaching The implication of this article in teaching is that we should train our students to become a reader. Good reading will provide good learning which will help all the subject area in school. As a teacher, we must also commit ourselves good reading habit for us to set not only as a good example but also for our own improvement. This also gave us the idea that we should imbued good reading habit as early as primary level because it is the foundation of their literacy competence and reading skills. We must do innovations in terms of reading materials so that the student will inspire to read.