Every Child A Reader program gets funding boost

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Education (DepEd) has allotted P21 million for various reading interventions under their “Every Child A Reader” program (ECARP) for school year 2011-2012 that will enable every child to attain reading competencies according to their grade level.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro said the ECARP program would also provide an assessment tool that will help schools determine the children’s reading level as well as the reading profile of the division, regional and national levels.

“We are implementing the ECARP through three components, namely Reading Recovery (RR), Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) and Philippine Word List in English (PWLE) to ensure a comprehensive approach to child learning,” said Luistro.

Support fund for RR will go to Regions I, III, IV-Calabarzon, V, VI, XI, the National Capital Region, and the Cordillera Administrative Region to augment expenses for the implementation of RR.

RR is an early intervention provided to children who are beginning to fall behind in reading and writing, to give them a chance to catch up by providing them specialized one-to-one reading assistance from a teacher trained in RR procedures.

The RR fund will be used to set up Regional Reading Recovery Centers, following international guidelines as well as for teacher training, including supplies and teaching materials.

Allotment will also go to the development of PWLE which also includes the inventory of frequently used words in English textbooks, the field validation of word lists as well as its finalization.

“Its aim is to standardize its use in the Philippine context and be used as a tool in building and assessing vocabulary development,” Luistro explained.

Private groups had gone to the rescue of DepEd to address this reading skills problem in public schools led by McDonald’s Philippines which had pledged as much as P370 million in 2008 for a five year “Bright Minds Read” program in public schools.