Several conclusions were drawn from various research which indicated that phoneme awareness has been shown consistently to be related to success in early reading. Ball & Blachman (1991) found that the group that received phonemic awareness training significantly outperformed both the language activities group and the control group on the phoneme segmentation posttest. Moreover, phonemic awareness among prereaders is a powerful predictor of future success in reading and spelling (Liberman, Shankweiler, Fis cher, & Carter, 1974; Lundberg, Wall, & Olofsson, 1980; Mann & Liberman, 1984; Share, Jorm, MacLean, & Math ews, 1984; Stanovich, Cunningham, & Feeman, 1984; Tun mer & Nesdale, 1985).
Therefore, it is not surprising that phonemic awareness has been imbedded in the K to 12 basic education curriculum where phonological skills, as one of the content standards, are expected to be demonstrated at the end of grade level 3 particularly on phonological awareness at the levels of the syllable and the phoneme. As to alphabet knowledge, at the end of grade 3, learners should be able to recognize, name and sound out all the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet. Further, they should be able to spell words with two or more syllables using phonic, semantic, and morphemic knowledge. These expected learning outcomes, according to several research, are dependent to phonemic awareness as indicated that explicit training of phonemic tasks improves reading achievement (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Bradley & Bryant, 1985; Cunningham, 1990; Lie, 1991; Lundberg, Frost, & Peterson, 1988); such findings suggest that there is a cause-effect relationship between phonemic awareness and reading achievement.
However, the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in education have affected more than 90% of the world student’s population. Many countries turned to online based distance education to ensure that learning never stops. However, some 826 million students (50%) kept out of classrooms by the pandemic do not have access to a computer at home, according to a recent study by the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) and the Teacher Task Force. Around 706 million students lack internet access and 56 million live in areas not covered by mobile networks. Many countries had to quickly find effective solutions and television and radio have proven to be a good alternative in a context where online learning is not possible.
In the Philippines, the Department of Education proposed various learning modalities. Those areas with good internet connection may use online distance learning, others may use Television or Radio Based Instructions, while the rest may use self-learning modules.
In response to this, Deped Tabuk City released Division Memorandum No. 126 on July 13, 2020 addressing persons concerned to conduct a survey for parents or guardians to choose which modality suits or applies for their children. The survey results show that Modular Distance Learning (MDL) is the modality that most of the parents and guardians preferred, but for phonemic awareness to be taught it needs at least verbal teaching and communication instead of the majority choice of using print materials.
Hence, for DepEd Tabuk City to address such concerns, two-way handheld devices have been distributed to various schools which are currently used in teaching phonemic awareness to kindergartners. Recently, Office of the Undersecretary for Administration (OUA) Strand had their school monitoring in Tabuk City and witnessed the pilot testing of the clever and effective use of walkie-talkies or handheld radios for DepEd blended learning. With no internet signal, said two-way radios are the medium for teaching and learning at Magnao Elementary School by 154 learners and 7 teachers wherein succeeding pilot testing was done in schools located in Barangays Maledda, Dagupan, Laya, Cabaruan, and Bado Dangwa that eventually led to its full implementation in schools with kindergarten students. The Walkie-talkies are also used in alternative learning system.
Effectivity of said modality was confirmed by Schools Division Superintendent Irene Angway, saying that the use of the handheld radios between teachers and learners made learning faster with the aid of Self Learning Modules. Further, she reiterated that teachers could monitor their students real-time, and that said device is very convenient to use even for the kindergartners, it is cost- efficient since it does not need to spend for top-up load which is needed for internet access. The use of two-way handheld radios was also adopted by schools in Abra and Catanduanes.
Though the handheld radios are convenient to use and very helpful in monitoring and tracking learners and their progress, said modality is not without lapses since teaching phonemic awareness needs assistance and guidance of parents or guardians to kindergarten students. Synchronous time has to be allotted between the teacher and the parent or guardian during Walkie- Talkie teaching and learning so as to meet the desired learning outcomes of the students. On the other hand, not all areas in Barangay Balong have radio signals, one of which is Purok 6. With this, home visitation observing basic health protocols is done every Tuesday in Purok 6, Barangay Balong for these other kindergarten students be able to learn phonemic awareness and be at par with their counterparts having access to said radio devices .
.png)
Comments