How can we aptly remedy the country’s learning gaps?
For a start, let’s resume in-person classes. The Department of Education’s (DepEd) decision to do so in places where the COVID-19 infection rate has dropped is unquestionably the right one. According to the Northwest Evaluation Association, a nonprofit organization, third graders suffered the most academically due to distance learning during the pandemic. These learners were in kindergarten when COVID-19 ravaged the world. Hence, their two years’ stay-at-home learning exclusively through modules did little to develop their reading and writing skills.
The learners’ early years at school are considered critical because this is when children are taught the basics of macro skills, which include reading and writing. For instance, phonemic awareness and phonics are strongly taught in Key Stage 1—Kinder to Grade 3. Different line strokes and the fundamentals of writing are likewise emphasized in the same grade levels. However, these skills were not adequately taught to the children which made them unprepared for entry into Key Stage 2.
If you ask Key Stage 1 teachers what their major problems this school year are, they’d probably answer that these would include children who struggle to identify the sounds of the alphabet or have difficulty writing a simple sentence. Not only learners in Key Stage 1 are adversely affected, but even learners’ comprehension skills in Key Stage 2 were found to have declined. Thus, when face-to-face classes resumed, you can see teachers teaching the letter sounds in Grades 4 to 6.
According to the World Bank, the reading performance among Filipino children was already low even before the virus struck the country, but was exacerbated when in-person classes were forced to cease. Distance learning did not compensate for the absence of teachers. The distributed modules and the parents’ involvement were not enough either for children to learn reading and writing the same way they would when face to face with teachers at school.
As a teacher, I can’t imagine the effects on learners if the pandemic and distance learning persist. Truly, the move to protect people from the virus and the push to continue learning were of equal importance during the pandemic. Thus, aside from the decision to resume face to face learning, the DepEd secretary’s Matatag initiative is timely and significant, as it pushes for fewer subjects in the lower grades to put more emphasis on the core subjects of reading, writing, and math. As a result, there would be plenty of time for teachers to impart these crucial skills, and for students to condition themselves to learn these rather than being inundated with hundreds of barely taught skills every quarter.
Still, if the onus is placed completely on the shoulders of teachers, these learning gaps cannot be closed. Parents, government and nongovernment sectors, the community, and other stakeholders must work together on this. It needs to be handled methodically, much like a major illness.
MARLON P. LABASTIDA