THE 2nd Congressional Commission on Education or EDCOM 2 probed the learning recovery program Catch-up Fridays by the Department of Education.

The department released DepEd Memorandum No. 01, s.2024, last January 12, devoting Fridays to activities for improving reading skills and comprehension.

“Based on EDCOM consultations, Catch-Up Fridays do not appear to be structured to optimize learning recovery,” Dr. Karol Mark Yee said.

“It seems that teachers have not been provided in-depth training on how to conduct effective reading intervention…while reading classes focus on ‘reading’ more texts, they do not necessarily help the students improve their reading skills,” he continued.

Citing data from the Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment from Regions IV-B, V, VI, VIII and NCR, more than 60 percent of Grade 1 and 2 students are not yet reading at the right level, with 4 percent needing full intervention, and 24 percent requiring moderate intervention.

The Commission also raised the difficulty of implementing targeted – or differentiated – instruction in the Catch-up Fridays sessions it has observed.

“Do you give your teachers the space to do differentiated instruction in the classroom as part of learning recovery?” EDCOM 2 Commissioner Kiko Benitez asked DepEd.

“The team of the National Reading Program has already trained our teachers nationwide on the implementation of the National Reading Program on how we handle these learners on different levels,” DepEd Usec. Gina Gonong answered.

“So the answer is meron? So you have a different program design for students who require moderate intervention versus a reading program for those who need only light intervention?…Pwede pong makita?” Benitez requested.

Dr. Yee noted EDCOM consultations show otherwise.

“We know – we’ve visited many schools – that [differentiated instruction] is not happening…If you look at the policy, it’s not explicit to do differentiated instruction. It is not explicit that you group learners by ability,” he said.

“The question is: how will we make it so, because until we change the practices, until we institute programs that could possibly move the needle, the reality is we will have homogeneous programs for heterogeneous learners and it’s not going to solve the issue,” he added.