Every Filipino child now has access to early childhood education, Kindergarten. At 5 years old, children start schooling and are given means to slowly adjust to formal education. Children who complete a standard-based Kindergarten program are better prepared for primary education. Education for children in the early years lays the foundation for lifelong learning and for the total development of a child. In Kindergarten, pupils learn the alphabet, numbers, shapes, and colors through games, songs, and dances, in their Mother Tongue. Students are able to learn best through their first Mother Tongue (Filipino) then later pupils are taught in the Second Language (English) introduced as a medium of instruction, both will become primary languages of instruction.
For the pupils to articulate the proficiency in language, they are taught first on how to read, and reading started in the familiarity and mastery of sounds which begins in the learning of articulators, that highlights the mastery of different sounds (primary and secondary). In this case, phonetics leads the way on how the pupils will master the Oral Language through reading. Reading is an essential skill for language learners. When your reading skills improve, your listening, speaking and writing skills improve too. Reading “ is the process of looking series of written symbols and getting” and we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraphs that communicate something to us. Reading is a receptive skill – through it we receive information. But the complex process of reading also requires the skill of speaking, that’s why when the pupils develop the proper way of pronouncing and articulating words through the mastery sounds, oral language will never be a problem since it is the foundation in developing communication , and oral speech. Traditionally, as what we have in our practice, we let our learner to memorize how to pronounce the words but not teaching them how to produce the sound of the words that’s why in some cases reading varies when the learner commits errors on how to read the words through wrong producing of sounds then meaning also varies.
For this reason, I really have the urge to strongly recommend that grade school teachers have to exert time in teaching the basic lessons in oral reading specifically phonetics that gives emphasis on how pupils will develop the skills in speaking .
By: Jane L. Mason | Teacher III | Kitang Elem. School | Limay, Bataan
