Compilation of Short Education Articles

School and Home Gardening

This pandemic challenged us to quickly adjust and adapt with the sudden shift in our usual way of living. Most sectors were affected and pushed to implement or perform activities different from our typical tasks. Schools changed the medium of learning through online classes and modules, and various school activities were postponed to ensure the safety of everyone. However, this pandemic also gives us an opportunity to learn new things even in the comfort of our own home.

Last year, F. B. Elementary School has launched a program that focuses on home and school hydroponic gardening, with the goal of providing an income-generating project to support the government's hunger reduction efforts by establishing school gardens and ensuring continuous supply for the School Based Feeding Program. In addition to traditional container gardening, hydroponic gardening is a method of growing plants without soil in urban areas, especially in-home gardening. Through this program, students can learn and practice hydroponic gardening in their own homes with the help of their parents in addition to traditional container gardening. To generate additional money for the family and extra school funding for the reproduction of Supplementary Reading Materials for Primary Grades, this project encourages teachers, students, and parents to start and manage school and home gardens. This project also aids in the provision of vegetables for the School Based Feeding Program, ensuring that the needs of children from kindergarten to grade six, particularly those with a Severely Wasted Nutritional Status, are met. Learners applied what they’ve learned in AP and EPP/TLE Agriculture to ensure the quality of the products of their gardening. Regular monitoring was made by the proponent together with the advisers, municipal link leader of 4Ps, and school head to ensure a productive and successful program. 

Developing Independent Reading in Primary Grades 

The ability of a pupil to read a text on their own or with little help from their parents or teacher is referred to as independent reading. There are available strategies to develop independent reading of students, but let us define first the factors that is related to the said skill. First is reading comprehension. It is understood as the goal of reading, it is difficult if the pupil does not have the ability to read fluently and expand vocabulary. Same reason why being able to interpret texts into speech (decoding) and oral reading fluency do not guarantee reading comprehension, but without these, comprehension will be difficult to achieve. It is important that teachers help monitor comprehension when their students read by giving the suitable level of text within their ability to decode and comprehend. Another factor is reading stamina, like how athletes build stamina to win the game, learners must also build stamina and set goal so they can have the energy and concentration as they focus on reading for a certain duration. Practicing reading texts at a suitable level that interests them will help improve their reading skills. By considering these factors, teachers can already help pupils to be a successful independent reader. The specific approach that a teacher can do to develop independent reading of students include: conducting daily lessons that practices independent reading; let students decide their reading goals and check their progress; an independent routine will be helpful to reduce distractions; help them select a text based on their level and comprehension while considering their interests; use book talks to get students excited about reading different texts; give them opportunities and; reward progress and achievements. In connection, monitoring comprehension while reading independently is also important. So, it is good that teachers will help the learners in using comprehension strategies. This strategy consists of think aloud strategy or being able to ask themselves if the texts make sense to them, looking for clues in the story and visual (if there is a picture), try sounding out the words, and re-reading the text. 

Marungko Approach and its Importance

Marungko Approach is a reading program that uses the current Filipino alphabet to help children improve their reading skills. Instead of introducing letters in a typical order, letters are grouped according to their sound focusing on the most frequent to the least occurring sounds in the Filipino language. The letters are then introduced through different form of literature that are localized and contextualized to help pupils remember and learn them better. This approach is important as it is designed to train Grade One pupils the needed skills to improve and attain reading fluency. It also aims to provide a training program to improve teachers' ability to teach reading in the primary grades, particularly in Grade One. This method helps beginning readers by teaching them how to recognize words by understanding letter-sound correspondence. Moreover, the purpose of this reading technique is for grade one students to develop an appreciation for the songs and poems produced for Filipino children and, eventually, to communicate in written and spoken forms through effective reading instruction.

Project ARCH: Acquiring Reading Comprehension and Habit

Project ARCH: Acquiring Reading Comprehension and Habit is a program that was implemented last October 14, 2019 in F. B. Elementary School. It aims to provide innovative and creative approaches and techniques for the development of reading skills and competencies of students. Through the efforts of teachers, principal, parents, and students, the program was successfully completed with a promising result. With parents' consent, those students who have reading deficiency were asked to attend the reading session for an hour three times a week every after class. They are divided into three teams with assigned teachers in each group. The reading materials, worksheets, and school supplies were provided. Before the session started, pre-assessment was conducted to identify the areas that need improvements. The approaches that were used include Marungko Approach for Filipino reading and Fuller Approach in English reading. The proponent of the project monitored the pupils' reading progress and addressed problems during teachers' meetings. As a result, the total number of Frustration was decreased while the total number of Instructional and Independent increased based on the PHIL-IRI results. 

The positive result of the program did not stop there. To help more students develop their reading competencies, Project ARCH - Year 2 was implemented. With the same process and objectives, the program was challenged by the new learning set up due to pandemic. To solve this, modification of the current procedures was made. The program aims to help not just the children but also the parents, guardians, and the Learning Support Aides (LSA). Pre-reading assessments were made through video or phone call, assessment tools were also distributed to all Grade 1 pupils and to those with reading deficiencies that were assessed before. Moreover, during home visitation, tutorial lessons, and follow up reading progress of all the recipients of the program, health protocols were observed. The proponent of the program together with the advisers of Grade 1-3 pupils monitored reading progress, provided learning materials, and other devices to successfully conduct this activity. After two years of implementing the project with its ability to adjust with circumstances, it is evident how effective it is.

Since I am super busy both with acads and the accomplishment reports my aunt asked me to do, I will just published these articles that I wrote for my aunt as well. You see the topic is all about education in elementary grades because my aunt is a teacher. She paid me to do this and I accepted it (It's difficult for me to say n0 actually lol) to help her and yeah extra income. I thought she'll not pay me again this time because I did a lot of writing and editing for her before, I even got sick because I was pressured to finish it but she didn't pay me that time and just said thank you. That's why I didn't expect her to pay this time, but now she did and I am thankful, tho the workload is a bit plenty haha

I'll try to publish a different article sooner or later for now, I'll just share these technical stuff I have here >.<

With love and curiousity,

curiouscath, Cathionicbond