Reading as they always say is the key that unlocks the door of the world of information , wisdom and enlightenment and is indispensable in learning. Quite true huh! But why was it that in spite if knowing the fact, why do we have the same problem every year? Slow learners, non – readers…Was it really a teacher related factor? Why don’t we just simply stop pointing fingers and resolve the problem instead?
Handling a Grade I class is something that is quite challenging for me . From knowing nothing , we need to facilitate learning to give our learners a chance to explore the world through reading . You can witness the excitement in their eyes whenever they get to read their very first word. But why was it that until now , we meet learners who could hardly recognize a word? Millions of children currently have their educational career blocked by serious disabilities in reading . We can even classify them into groups, those who encounter unusual difficulty in learning how to read… mostly from the primary level , those who can read but are notably deficient in all phases of reading while others are simply not interested to read.
Reading according to Dr. Goodman is a psycholinguistic guessing game . It is a selective process. As their partial information is processed, tentative decisions are made to be confirmed, rejecter or refined as the reading progresses. But still after some confirmations and rejections, there are some pupils who really find it hard to read and most of the time they are being tagged as slow learners. But if we are going to take a closer look at the problem , we will realize that we are just encountering the same problem every year. Maybe the same person , maybe not . How can we get out of this mess? Will next school year be just like our previous school years? Are we going to encounter the same problem again in the years to come ? Can ‘ t we have a permanent solution for this? Who are to be blamed? Parents ? Teachers ? Immediate superiors? Technology ? Media ? Regardless of its origin it’s here now. We have to face it. We couldn’t only blame one for this , but just the same we couldn’t only ask one to resolve this . Teachers need the support of parents to develop good study habits , the community to support the battle to overcome the problem , the superiors to share their expertise and even the government to provide printed materials that will motivate our learners to read more and to finance studies to finally resolve the problem . but reminder … we do not only need one of these but instead we need all of these contributory solutions, or else… we will see ourselves next year in the same situation again .
By: Ma. Concepcion M. Reyes
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