The Department of Education (DepEd) has revealed the initial results of a 2019 study showing that more than 70,000 elementary students in Bicol are unable to read in both Filipino and English.
Of those 70,000 there are 18,143 students in Grades 3 to 6. The rest are students in Grades 1 and 2.
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This is based on the results of pretests administered by the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) between July and August 2019.
Phil-IRI is an initiative of the department’s Bureau of Elementary Education aimed towards clarifying the state of literacy among elementary school students. It is an informal reading inventory consisting of graded passages designed to determine a student’s performance in oral reading, silent reading, and listening comprehension.
In light of these results, the DepEd regional office has instructed all elementary schools to give special attention to reading proficiency.
“Every learner should not be left behind, particularly in reading, and that is why we are promoting the 5Bs (Bawat Batang Bicolano Bihasang Bumasa) in every school,” Gilbert Sadsad, DepEd regional director, said in a press conference.
DepEd Bicol’s information officer, Mayflor Marie Jumamil, assures that teachers are making the proper efforts in educating the children.
“There are lots of interventions being done by teachers to solve the problem and we make sure that a student should not be promoted to the next level unless the student is fully ready,” Jumamil said.
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