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Challenges in Reading Competency of the Filipino Learners

This work is part of the requirement in Current Trends in Education in Doctor of Education Class for the Academic Year, 2021-2022.

Reading is the primary tool for learning. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) describes it as the means by which literate persons can gain access to the vast and varied supply of knowledge and experiences that has been preserved in written form (Estrada, 2016). Reading is one of the most needed skills to be learned in school. It is considered as the most important subject in the curriculum because its mastery depends on the learning nearly all other subjects. On account of this reality, Filipino educators have in countless instruction channeled their effort towards developing strategies and approaches.

Learning to read is one of the greatest accomplishments in childhood because it is the foundation for learning and academic achievement. Reading is one of the most important skills acquired during a lifetime. With the ability to speak effectively and to write in a variety of forms and for a variety of purposes, reading competency can provide economic opportunity, social status, personal pleasure, and self-respect.

Being able to read is an avenue for personal and social growth. A child can fully view ever winding horizons and explores areas in the world of people, things and events through reading. The key to success is through reading; hence, proficiency in reading is vital to the continuous growth and development of the child.

Completing the reading act involves perception, understanding, interpretation, and use. This means that an efficient reader must be able to recognize the word read and the letters which make up each word, understand what word stands in relation to the other words or its context, read the new knowledge which the word convey to his past experience and apply what he reads in appropriate situations.

In school, reading is the most important subject to be learned by the child. For this matter, a child will learn little in today's world if he does not learn to read properly. Reading is both a subject of instruction and a tool employed towards effective teaching-learning process (Roleff, 2009). It cannot be denied that every teacher is in cognizance that skillful handling of Reading as a school subject is very vital and important specially to beginning readers to avoid frustration in the end.

The significance of Reading as a school subject cannot be refuted and underestimated. This made clear that proficiency in Reading is directly related to academic success. Furthermore, skills in reading are considered a fundamental factor, a must, a need, which enables, helps, assists, and inspires the child to succeed in school, in his daily activities, in his career, and in his life as a whole (Echaure, 2017).

The inability to read may lead the learner to nowhere as disability in reading affects his achievements in school. He may find himself left out of school activities which make him inferior almost all the time. His socialization skills are also affected, and he fails to appreciate the beautiful things life offers. In addition, when a learner does not learn to read at the time it is expected of him, he suffers not only from the difficulty with all other subjects and activities in school that depend on reading competence.

References:

Echaure, Jessie A. (2017). "Developing the Reading Literacy Among Grade 1 Learners in the Philippines." Ramon Magsaysay Technological University. Estrada, Jane Charity A. (2016). "The Level of English Oral Reading Fluency Among Abot-Alam Secondary Learners." Department of Education, Division of Ozamiz City.