THE UNITED States government, through the US Agency for International Development, recently handed over 1,000 sets of Home Learning Resource Kits for numeracy to eight pilot schools in Western Visayas.

“We hope that through these supplemental materials, we are ensuring the continuity of learning and developing numeracy skills of our early grade learners in the comforts of their home.  We also hope that these kits will aid parents and guardians at home in helping their children learn, have fun and love mathematics concepts,” Yvette Malcioln, USAID deputy director for Education, said.

The kits were made through the collaborative efforts of the Department of Education, USAID ABC+ project and the University of the Philippines National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development.

They were designed to help build learners’ conceptual and procedural fluency and their ability to reason and make connections.

USAID also gave the same number of kits to eight other pilot schools in Region V.

The distribution of these kits is part of the “Early Numeracy Initiative for Remote Learning implemented by USAID through its ABC+: Advancing Basic Education in the Philippines project.”

The initiative also trained teachers, school administrators and school divisions in Regions V and VI early this year on improving the delivery of numeracy and mathematics instruction in Kinder to Grade 3 classrooms.

“We cannot implement our Learning Continuity without our partners – the local government and USAID ABC+ who offered their technical assistance and expertise to us along with their many initiatives,” John Arnold Siena, director of DepEd’s National Educators Academy of the Philippines, said.

Malcioln also joined the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Education, USAID ABC+ project and the Uygongco Foundation Inc. to support the implementation of the ABC+ Beginning Reading Program.

The program will reach out to disadvantaged children in select schools and provide technical and material support as well as resources on early grade learning for teachers, learners and their families.

“This activity affirms our effort that we are doing right. Together, with fervent desire, let us push this forward to help the children that we are all serving,” Uygongco Foundation Inc. Executive Director Mary Jean Bernaldez Solidio said.