One syllable at a time. This was the thought that encouraged three young educators – Tisha Gonzales-Cruz, Noelle Pabiton and Sholeh Villoria – to embark on a life-changing project to effectively teach kinder and elementary school children how to read in 18 days.
(from left) Chef Rob Pengson and Reese Fernandez; BIPHI’s Director
of Consumer Health Care, Ricky Rivera; Boehringer Ingelheim
Head of Finance, Andreas Meneghetti (6th from left); BIPHI Head
of Medical, Dr. Editha I. Arceo Dalisay (4th from left); Pharmaton
Senior Brand Manager Bernice Jalgalado; Boehringer Ingelheim
Group Manager, Mely Guerrero; and Futkal founder and
Pharmaton Life Changer Peter Amores.
“In 2002, while teaching at the International School Manila, we did a crayon drive for the children of Bukidnon. They sent us a picture of the classroom and it was bare,” Teacher Tisha recalls. That picture gave her the resolve to “someday fill a classroom like this with materials. And that started this journey,” she shares.
Teacher Tisha started developing reading materials on her own, and pretty soon, she met more and more people who shared the same passion – burden in fact – for teaching Filipino children how to read. As everyone knows, education is the great equalizer but it starts with knowing how to make heads or tails about the letters of the alphabet, figuring out the relationship between one letter with another for comprehension and understanding to occur.
“We made materials in English first and then shared these with public schools and other communities. But we saw the need was greater in Filipino,” Teacher Tisha explains, elaborating that Alpabasa – the name of the reading project – began as a game-based program. “We made a thousand of these Alpabasa sets but they ere not enough, and we needed to improve the materials, and we needed the help of expert reading teachers and writers,” Teacher Tisha admits.
The answer to her prayers came in the form of Teacher Noelle and Teacher Sholeh who burned the midnight candle, so to speak, putting their heads together to make the Alpabasa program happen.
“I saw that children need so much from their teachers but these teachers were not equipped to meet their needs, so the children end up suffering in the process because they don’t have the basic support system,” Teacher Sholeh observed.
More than the lack of materials in the classroom, or the dearth of effective Filipino reading programs and the poor reading skills among public school students and children in underserved communities, what really resonated was also the need for more systematic teacher training.
The difficulties that Teacher Noelle encountered as a Grade 3 public school teacher made her realize that “many of the students had poor foundations in literacy and numeracy. Watching my students struggle to read, and struggle to learn, led me to realize that the key to solving educational problems is going back to the beginning – preparing the students rather than remediating.”
“Regardless of age, when you teach someone to read,
you really change their lives and ignite their passion
to succeed,” says Noelle Pabiton of
“Oras na Para sa Alpabasa.”
The first step in the program was an assessment of the reading skills of the children – and anyone with lesser determination would have been disheartened: most did not recognize the letters of the alphabet – since the target for Day 2 was to see the children actually reading books. Yet these expectations were met to the gratified amazement of the teachers. “If we were amazed, how much more so the children?” Teacher Tisha smiles.
Asked what significant results they have witnessed as a consequence of their reading program, the young educators readily answer: “A teacher who piloted Alpabasa last May shared with us that one of her students (a Grade 1 repeater) is now topping the class, despite underperforming during the summer reading program. Even this student who had a difficult time during the program still ended up performing better than his peers who did not learn through Alpabasa.”
children and teachers to learn to read with
enthusiasm and excitement. Alpabasa is a highly
effective game-based reading program that
incorporates music, movement, games, and
activities in learning. Its goal is to make fluent
readers out of every Filipino child.
Needless to say, one of the greatest satisfactions they get is “seeing the children’s faces light up when they realize that they can do it, and seeing the teachers motivated to teach reading remind us why we do this,” they aver.
The journey is just beginning, of course, with millions more of Filipino kids in underserved communities needing the help of the “Oras na Para sa Alpabasa” project, which received a much needed shot in the arm when it was chosen as the grand winner of Pharmaton’s “Life Changers Challenge: Success in Numbers” competition – an online, video-driven nationwide search for Filipinos who carry life changing ideas that can positively impact the lives of other Filipinos.
For Teachers Tisha, Noelle and Sholeh, the goal for the next couple of years is simple: To reach as many teachers and children as possible. There is no doubt they will do just that, not so much because the win in the Pharmaton Life Changers contest came with a P1 million cash prize, but because more and more Filipinos are getting inspired by their example that yes, one can indeed change lives for the better – one letter, one syllable at a time.