More books for McDonalds’ reading program

More books will be given to elementary public school students with the expansion of the Bright Minds Read program of the McDonald’s House of Charities and the Department of Education.

DepEd regional director Carolino Mordeno said that this year’s expanded BMR program will provide supplemental books not only in public elementary schools in Metro Manila but also to public elementary schools nationwide.

The program is set to cost P370M over five years and benefit 37,000 public elementary schools nationwide, Mordeno said.

“Good reading skills facilitate the learning process in many subject matters, McDonald’s BMR supplementing our Every Child a Reader Program promises further improvement in the achievement levels of elementary pupils, and consequently of high school students.  Now that we are coming up with ways to provide more resources and opportunities for reading, the challenge for us is to spur the reading habit among children,” he added.

The BMR Program is a reading program that provides instructional materials to teachers and worksheets to pupils with the purpose of making each grade one pupil an independent reader by third grade.

A BMR kit contains 28 big books in Filipino and four big books in English.  It also includes a BMR bag, a set of manuals for teachers, a set of worksheets for students, one ABC chart, and a BMR banner.

This joint program also provides training workshop for grade 1 teachers and school heads of recipient schools.  — Jasmin R. Uy/BRP