Inventorying the IRI

Inventorying the IRI

Standing next in line for the IRI, her edginess only hinted at by the nervous biting of her index finger, Ellalene quietly sits down on the bench with me and after a few introductory words, we begin the IRI. She stops biting her finger and focuses on the task at hand. In fifteen unruffled minutes that were as neat as the way she tucked her hair into a ponytail and put a flower headband to prevent the hair further going astray, we were finished. After letting her sign her name on a sheet of paper, Ellalene quietly went and took her seat at the front of the class. Ellalene is a nine-year old third grader I met when I was doing the Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) for one of our major classes. She is one of the top three in her class and speaks in an unusually loud and rather brisk manner for someone her age. She reads very fast and breezes through reading selections of the IRI in less than a minute. Apart from the understandable faulty vowels (she tends to pronounce /e/ as /I/ as in /git/ for get) – sounds which are not really a part of our native language that’s why children mispronounce them – her reading is impeccable; she even reached Level 5 in the Word Recognition List, a considerable feat for a third grader. When it comes to comprehension however, Ellalene becomes silent. Compared to the Word Recognition List, she easily reached frustration level at Level 3, her ideal instructional level supposedly. Although she could still answer the questions given enough silent reading time and a few repetitions of the question using Waray, it was clear that she was having a hard time in understanding the selection. She even refused to answer two questions altogether. Towards the end of the reading test, she had resorted to nervously biting her left index finger, a sure sign of uneasiness and frustration. We had to stop the test right there. Ellalene is only one of the millions of pupils who go through the IRI every year to determine their reading levels, whether independent, instructional, or frustration level. This Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) is an initiative of the Bureau of Elementary Education of the DepEd anchored on the flagship program of the department with the slogan, “Every Child a Reader, Every Reader a Learner”. With the program’s goal of enabling every Filipino child to communicate proficiently both in English and Filipino through effective reading instruction, the IRI provides greater insight into a pupil’s reading level. The IRI does not provide a specific diagnosis; rather, it provides the classroom teacher greater understanding of the child’s abilities, which in turn may lead to more accurate instruction. Apparently, the teacher already knew of her reading level, which, it turns out is just the norm. The teacher was aware that her pupils are very good when it comes to word recognition, but falls below par in comprehension. And there seems to be nothing that can be done about it, since five decades ago, several years before the 1973 Bilingual Policy of Education was implemented, researches on reading in the Philippines already revealed that the average accuracy in reading was equivalent to a retardation of two years. Another research in 1988 found that the greatest difficult is mispronunciation in oral reading, and word meaning in silent reading. Since reading in itself is a survival skill that has to be learned and mastered in our age, it becomes imperative that our Filipino children be certified readers by grade three, the so-called threshold for reading, so they could be lifelong learners. It is this significant language factor which leads to the high functional illiteracy and low learning outcomes of Filipinos that the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE) policy seeks to address. According to a 2003 functional literacy survey, 1 out of 3 Filipinos, between 10-64 years old, could not understand what they were reading. Now nine years later, and two years since the institutionalization of the MTBMLE policy in 2009, pupils like Ellalene are still having difficulty with reading comprehension in English. Tacloban City is still a long way from the 100+ pioneer schools in the country implementing MTBMLE in 2010. However, it is expected that this year we will have enough trained teachers and developed materials for MTBMLE to be mainstreamed at Kindergarten and Grade 1 levels in every region. In 2013, and every year thereafter, a new grade level under the MTBMLE curriculum will be added until the new program covers the entire elementary cycle. This would mean that MTBMLE will never catch up with Ellalene and others her age. By the time the policy will cover the entire elementary cycle, Ellalene will be in second year high school already, a long way from her formative years, her errors possibly fossilized, and her reading comprehension abilities below the ideal level. By then it will be too late for Ellalene and the others who will not benefit from the MTBMLE anymore. But it is hoped that the MTBMLE will be just in time to help the other younger learners, the ones who will soon assume responsibility for themselves and for our nation.