PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:  LITERACY

AFFLIP Coordinators: Jeanette Emery 

TWG Coordinator: Hyacinth Flores

The Literacy program

Education is central to the social, economic, environmental, and cultural health of all societies and literacy is critical in achieving an educated community. When children comprehend texts successfully, their life trajectories are enhanced, and they are better able to participate in democratic societies.

Our priority for 2022-2025 is Guided Reading Using Book boxes, referred to as GRUBB.

GRUBB complements AFFLIP’s Learning Empowerment objective including:

• provision of learning resources for identified schools in the Philippines.

• professional development programmes for Filipino teachers and administrators.

AFFLIP’s partnership with Magic Libraries Foundation (Geneva) enabled what was a small-scale reading project to expand into fifteen schools in Grades 4-6 across the Talomo District. MLF provided AFFLIP with an initial grant of $20 000 for the purchase of the books and a subsequent grant of $71,000 through which to implement the project over two years.

GRUBB aims to:

• provide appropriate and relevant reading resources for students to learn to read

• upskill teachers in small group instruction including the explicit teaching of comprehension, vocabulary and fluency.

• increase the number of students from frustration to instructional reading level by 10% in Year 4-5 in Talomo District schools.

• increase the number of students from instructional reading level to independent reading by 25% in Year 4-5 in Talomo District schools.

• improve students attitude and motivation towards learning to read in English in Year 4-5 in Talomo District schools.

Two delegations of teachers and educational leaders have visited South Australia as part of the GRUBB initiative to observe practices in teaching and learning in reading.

Our previous priority area “Fostering Achievements in Reading – Nine Essentials About Reading” (FAR-NEAR) plan developed in 2019 in consultation with SA and Talomo schools is now embedded into early years curriculum and recognized as an important part of early years literacy teaching in the Philippines.

Over the years AFFLIP has shipped nearly 10,000 donated books in new or as new condition to the Talomo schools worth conservatively $90,000, and along with laminators and big book stands, has contributed a further $22,000 to the Literacy program prior to the GRUBB initiative.