Success Stories

It takes a community to raise reading children: a collective effort of Parang Elementary School

August 11, 2022

ABC+

Learn how a school and community raised reading children in the 3rd digest of Progress & Beyond! In this digest, we tell the story of Parang Elementary School and how they lived by the principle “It takes a community to raise a child” as they mobilized partners to raise reading children and embedded compassion within the community. 


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Progress and Beyond: A Good Practice Digest on Early Grade Education | Digest #3


Background
Parang Elementary School is one of the four pilot schools in Region V that partnered with the USAID ABC+ Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines project amidst the pandemic in 2020. It is among the first schools to receive early grade reading materials, professional development programs for teachers, and other tools to support the school’s advocacy “to deliver quality education through intensifying literacy proficiency of every learner.”

Challenges
According to School Principal Lourdes Non, Parang Elementary School has the smallest land area among other schools in the town of Jose Panganiban in Camarines Norte, but is the most population dense. It is a challenge to cater to all the literacy needs of the students, especially when the pandemic hampered the regular school activities. Then she learned that the whole community is the best partner to raise a reading child.

Solutions
Principal Non is among the graduates of the Instructional Leadership Training of ABC+. According to her, she was able to apply the concepts and strategies she has learned from the training to the projects they implemented in the school. Among those is the Project SHINE (Structured Home Instructional Intervention in New Normal Environment) in 2020. Home learning partners (HLPs) were organized to form Parent Group Circles with six members each to support the early grade learning of children at home. The teachers trained parent leaders on how to teach beginning reading so the leaders can teach their co-HLPs in the circle. Every week, HLPs in the circle took turns in collecting the modules from the parents for submission to the school and in collecting new modules to lessen members' exposure to COVID-19.

Also, an HLP is assigned per week to teach the children in the circle so other HLPs can use the time to work and earn for their families.

The school also mobilized local leaders and created a Community Group Circle. The circle is composed of the barangay captain, youth council, and volunteers whose main task was to provide learning spaces for the sessions of the Parent Group Circles with children. Sessions were held in the barangay hall and chapel, and the Community Group Circle ensured that proper health protocols were followed. ABC+ early grade reading materials were used to teach reading among children.

ABC+ early grade reading materials are used in the reading session of children.

“One single step makes a difference. And we are very proud to have taken that step with ABC+ because we were able to achieve all these accomplishments for the children.”
-Lourdes B. Non, School Principal of Parang Elementary School

In 2021, the school intensified the collective efforts of teaching reading to children at home. They started the Project SHARE (School Home Assistance Reading Enhancement) led by Teacher Dorian Dulay. The project is in support to Region V's campaign for Bawat Batang Bicolano Bihasang Bumabasa (5Bs) that aims to engage all stakeholders to improved reading outcomes in the region. Volunteers were mobilized to become learning facilitators and ABC+ books were utilized as early grade reading materials.

The school also launched the project Structured Mid-Intervention in Reading and Assessment (SMIRA) in the same year. It aims to closely monitor the reading and comprehension skills of 561 Grades 1 to 3 through quarterly reading assessment using the ABC+ tools. The school used the ABC+ Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment (CRLA) as pre-test and post-test assessment tools while the leveled reader passages from the ABC+ reading materials were used for the 1st Mid- and 2nd Mid-Assessments. With this, teachers were able to develop intervention schemes to help learners attain grade level proficiency and improve performance in other areas of discipline.

Results
With the collective effort of the community, and with the close monitoring and support by teachers, 96% of the 561 learners have shown improvements in reading and comprehension skills in Filipino, and only 4% were still at full refresher level. In English, 88%of learners have shown improvements and 12% is still at full refresher level.

Aside from reading intervention programs, Parang Elementary School implements other service-oriented projects to vulnerable sectors, support projects with parents, and wellness programs for teachers. The teachers are also strong advocates of early grade education as they become certified regional trainers of ABC+ teacher trainings and illustrator of ABC+ books.

Parang Elementary School has become a center for collective learning and compassion which makes the school conducive for every child to prosper.


To learn more about the good practice, contact:

Ms. Lourdes B. Non
School Principal
Parang Elementary School
[email protected]