PARK FOR LEARNING:

A Proposed Intervention Facility for Struggling Readers of Mate Elementary School

Introduction

Reading is one of the most important skills that a child must learn. It is essential not only

in the academic progress of a child but also in one's everyday living. Learning to read must begin

at home but when a child starts schooling, it is the teacher's role to teach the child the skills in

reading. It is also the teacher's responsibility to provide, plan, and teach effective reading strategies

to make the child a successful and skilled reader.

Reading is a mental process in which someone looks into a written text and starts to absorb

the information from the written linguistic message. Comprehending what you have read is

another, yet an important skill that furthers the learners’ various academic tasks (Umadhay, 2017).

According to Collins English Learner’s Dictionary, reading is an act of looking at and

understanding point. It is an act of communication wherein the written text acts as a medium to

transmit information to receiver. Likewise, Brunan (1989) defined reading as a two-way

interaction in which information is exchanged between the reader and the author.

From these definitions, one can tell how much important reading is as an acquired skill to

each individual. Reading is a major avenue of learning (Mariam, 1991). Most of the learning

materials were acquired through reading. Without it as one of four macro skills, learning is deemed

to be quite hard to achieve.

To fully address and determine the reading difficulties of Filipino youth, the Bureau of

Elementary Education – Department of Education administered the Philippine Informal Reading

Inventory (Phil-IRI). Its goal is to enable every Filipino child to communicate proficiently both in

English and Filipino through effective reading instruction (Venelyn Cruz, n.d.). The development

of the Phil-IRI is one of the initiatives put in place in support of the Every Child A Reader Program

(ECARP). Before teachers can design and provide appropriate reading instruction for their

students, they should be armed with information about their students’ current reading levels and
abilities. This diagnostic approach to describing how children read embraces inclusionary

principles that emphasize the need for education that is learner-oriented, responsive and culturally

sensitive. The Phil-IRI is one of the diagnostic tools that teachers can use to determine students'

abilities and needs in reading.

The Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) was created to provide classroom

teachers a tool for measuring and describing reading performance. It is an assessment tool

composed of graded passages designed to determine a student’s reading level. It is important to

note that the Phil-IRI only provides an approximation of the learner’s abilities and may be used in

combination with other reliable tools of assessment.

The pupils were measured according to their reading level: the independent, instructional

and frustrated reading level. Those pupils who are in the Independent Reading Level can read with

ease without the help of the teacher. In the Phil-IRI test they can answer four or five correct answers

and can read with rhythm, with a conversational tone, and can interpret punctuation correctly.

Pupils who are in the Instructional Reading Level can profit from instruction. In the PHIL-IRI test,

they can answer three out of five test questions correctly. In the Frustrated Reading Level, pupils

get two or below in the Phil-IRI test (out of five test questions). They show symptoms or behavior

of withdrawing from reading situations and commit multiple types of errors in oral reading (Luz,

2007)

These data will not only help the teachers and researchers to pinpoint the problem, it can

also help them develop ways on how to solve the problem in reading. Teachers have used a lot of

different tools and strategies that will help lessen, if not, eradicate the number of pupils who are in

the frustration level.

To conform to this reading program, most schools all over the Philippines started to

formulate innovative and creative actualization of this. Some progressed their libraries through

adding various updated and authentic materials; while some included reading as part of their daily

classroom routine.

Mate Elementary School located at Brgy.Mate Tayabas City, through benchmarking, came

to an idea of a reading park, which would be called Parke de Mate: Reading Park for Learning,
would become helpful in cultivating love for reading. Through this park, students are expected to

escalate their current reading level since majority of them are observed to be below their expected

reading level.

Parke de Mate contains different and creative reading activities for both Filipino and

English. It has the very basic reading tasks for beginners and complex tasks for advanced level of

readers. This would also maximize students reading involvement since inclusivity is promoted and

everyone is welcome to sit and read anytime. It is a combination of indoor and outdoor reading

activities to be administered during the remedial time of the learners. It involves the domains in

reading starting from Oral Language, Phonological Awareness, Book and Print Knowledge,

Alphabet Knowledge, Phonics and Word Recognition, Writing and Composition, Grammar

Awareness and Structure, Vocabulary Development, Reading and Listening Comprehension,

Study Skills and Attitude towards Language, Literacy, and Literature. These domains will be

introduced to the learners one by one depending on the level of learners in order for each learner

to have mastery of each reading skill/ domain.

Parke de Mate has different facilities that cater the diverse reading needs of the learners. It

is composed of reading materials, manipulative toys, reading ornaments, reading walls, and

reading fences which are composed of leveled reading instructions for every learner's reading

ability. These facilities and materials are to be used to improve the weak point of the learner's

reading performance based from the result of the PHIL-IRI pretest assessment. The baseline of

this project are the pupils from S.Y. 2019-2020 Phil IRI Stage 2: Pretest who did not reach their

reading level.

Statement of the Problem

This study aimed to determine the impact of the Park for Learning as intervention in the

reading performance of the struggling readers of Mate Elementary School. Specifically, it sought

to answer the following questions:

1. Reveal the pretest and posttest results of the PHIL IRI in Filipino from grades III to VI and

results in PHIL IRI in English from grades IV to VI.

2. Find out if there is a significant difference between the results in the pretest and posttest of PHIL

IRI in English and Filipino.

3. Evaluate the facilities of the Park for learning in terms of:

3.1 Accuracy of Content

3.2 Relevance to learners' context

3.3 Appropriateness of reading texts and activities to grade level

3.4 Sensitivity (gender biases, prejudices, and other forms of discrimination)

3.5 Creativity

4. Identify the effects of the Park for Learning to the reading performance of the struggling readers

of Mate Elementary School.

Objectives

This study aimed to determine the impact of the Park for Learning as intervention in the

reading performance of the struggling readers of Mate Elementary School. Specifically, it sought

to accomplish the following:

1. Reveal the pretest and posttest results of the PHIL IRI in Filipino from grades III to VI and

results in PHIL IRI in English from grades IV to VI.

2. Find out if there is a significant difference between the results in the pretest and posttest of PHIL

IRI in English and Filipino.

3. Evaluate the facilities of the Park for learning in terms of:

3.1 Accuracy of Content

3.2 Relevance to learners' context

3.3 Appropriateness of reading texts and activities to grade level

3.4 Sensitivity (gender biases, prejudices, and other forms of discrimination)

3.5 Creativity
4. Identify the effects of the Park for Learning to the reading performance of the struggling readers

of Mate Elementary School.

Plan of Action

STRATEGIES PERSONS IMPLEMENTATION DATE Materials

INVOLVED Needed
Researcher Initial meeting with
A. PLANNING School Head school head, 2nd week of PHIL-IRI GST
Parents teachers, parents July Results
Teachers involved
B. Researcher Educate the pupils 2nd week of Laptop
IMPLEMENTA School Head about the significance July Projector
TION Parents of the program
Teachers
Pupils

Researcher Conduct the PHIL IRI 3rd week of PHIL IRI Pretest
Teachers pretest July Passages
Pupils

Researcher Consolidate the 4th week of PHIL IRI

results of the pretest July Consolidation
Determine the level of template
the learners whether
they belong to
INDEPENDENT,
INSTRUCTIONAL, or
FRUSTRATION

Researcher Conduct reading 1st week of Park for

Teachers intervention to pupils August to 4th Learning
Pupils through the Park for week of Facilities
Learning January
Researcher Conduct of PHIL IRI 1st week of PHIL IRI Posttest
Teacher Posttest February Passages
Pupils

Researcher Consolidate the 2nd week of PHIL IRI

results of the posttest February Consolidation
Determine the template
placement of the
pupils after the
intervention has been
conducted

Researcher Analyze the data March 2020

collected