A month-long “Summer Reading Camp”, a remedial program that aims to develop students’ reading comprehension and capability, will be launched again this year in all 39 public elementary schools in Valenzuela City.

An initiative of Valenzuela City Congressman Win Gatchalian that began in 2014, the “Summer Reading Camp” will be holding classes again during weekdays starting April 27 until May 22 on its second year.

A total of 16,227 incoming students of Grade 3, 5, and 6, who were identified as “frustrated readers” and “non-readers,” have been identified to participate in the program.

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Frustrated readers refer to children who find it difficult to comprehend the meaning of words; while non-readers refer to children who totally cannot read.

Reading classes are expected to last for four hours every day, and students may be asked to attend during morning or afternoon, depending on the announcement of their own public elementary school.

To ensure students are in their right condition to learn, the “Summer Reading Camp” also commits to provide free snacks for participating pupils per session.

Also, students from the newly constructed Antonio Serapio Elementary School will take remedial classes in Gen. T. De Leon Elementary School and Silvestre Lazaro Elementary School.

The local government of Valenzuela City organized the “Summer Reading Camp” with the Department of Education or DepEd to sharpen the students’ reading skills and help them better understand their lessons.

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The reading program also aims to improve the city’s performance in education benchmark exams, such as the National Achievement Test or NAT.
A total of 1,056 instructors, composed of 558 public school teachers and 528 teacher aids from Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Valenzuela or PLV, were recruited to meet the ideal 1:15 teacher-student ratio to ensure that students will get much-needed attention in reading tutorials.

These reading instructors were given a week-long training in order to equip them with necessary skills and familiarize them with the curriculum of teaching kids how to read.

Curriculum that will be used in the reading camp is the “Know-Want-Learn” framework, wherein students will be asked to recall the previous day’s lecture, making it easy for them to memorize their core lessons through repetition.

One of the curriculum highlights was the “Directed Reading-Thinking Activity” where the teacher will ask their pupils on what they thought about the topic to engage them, as opposed to the typical method where pupils wait until the end of the whole story.

Last year, the “Summer Reading Camp” taught a total of 18,736 incoming Grade 3 and 6 students, composed of 2,225 of non-readers and 16,151 of frustrated readers, from all public elementary schools in Valenzuela City. (Tim Alcantara)