December 6, 2021 – To cultivate and assess learners’ reading skills, the Department of Education (DepEd) encouraged teachers, parents, and other reading specialists to use the Reading Progress Tool during the orientation on the activities for the National Reading Month on October 26.

The Reading Progress Tool is a self-instructional application that can help teachers help their learners enhance their reading proficiency and develop a love for reading. It can be accessed through the Assignments tab in Microsoft Teams.

“As an avid reader myself, I’d like to witness the next generation become well-rounded readers as well since reading give a multitude of benefits on well-being and the learning process. This initiative is another step of the Department to champion reading as a foundational tool for quality education,” Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones said.

Bureau of Learning Delivery (BLD) Director Leila Areola encouraged teachers, supervisors, and parents to use the Reading Progress Tool as it was developed for inclusive learning.

“The Reading Progress is a Microsoft Teams built-in-tool that is designed to support and track the reading fluency of learners. The tool can be used for K-12 emerging readers, non-native speakers, and those with dyslexia and other learning disabilities,” Director Areola noted.

Meanwhile, Mr. Christian Catahan, Customer Success Manager from Microsoft Philippines, discussed the Reading Progress Tool features and how they can help the teachers assess the learners’ fluency in reading Filipino and English texts.

“It is a tool that is free for everyone, for all DepEd learners and teachers. All you have to do is, of course, use your DepEd-provided Microsoft account,” Mr. Catahan shared.

Contextualized tutorial for Filipino teachers on using the Reading Progress Tool is available through the link: aka.ms/DepEdReadingProgress.

Attended by DepEd regional supervisors and teachers of English and Filipino, the orientation was conducted to highlight the upcoming activities of the Department in celebration of the 2021 Pambansang Buwan at Araw ng Pagbasa (PBAP) this November.

With the theme, “Bawat Bata Bumabasa sa Kabila ng Hamon ng Pandemya”, this year’s PBAP aims to promote love for reading among learners.

PBAP activities include capacity building on Storytelling, Dugtungang Pagbasa, Reading Cup, and Reading Challenge for learners, teachers, and non-teaching personnel.

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