For the Love of Books & Reading: Books for Tots = Buklat Aklat Iriga

This week's Love a Library post is not about library development in its fullest sense of the phrase but a literacy project that focus on book donation and literacy instruction training in Iriga City.

National Bookstore Foundation, Inc. (NBFI) and the United Iriguenos, Inc. (UII) began book donation projects in 40 schools in Iriga City in 2009. UII considers the literacy project as a way of giving back to their fellow kababayans, epsecially children, who experience a dearth of school supplies and books in their schools. The organization is made up of Iriguenos who've been successful at craving a niche for a better life in the USA. Fortunately, they found a partner through the philanthropic arm of National Bookstore, the leading school supplies and book store in the country.

I have been involved as teacher trainor along with my friend, Cynthia Villafranca, in a reading and literacy training for teachers whose schools are recipients of the UII and NBSFI book donations.

Teachers in the training workshop had an opportunity to revisit their reading strategies alongside pedagogical theories. The training was an avenue to learn new paradigms of learning as well. They evaluated and selected books for children according to their time tested practice and criteria given to them during the input session.

Through group presentations, teachers were able to share insights and reflections they had during  group discussion.

At the end of the day, teachers set up reading corners. These reading corners were used the following day for the Reading into Writing and Content Area Reading workshop of Ms. Villafranca. They wrote stories and used local story books as integrated resources for the teaching of different content area subjects.

The schools who were recipients of the training workshop and book donations will be asked to submit accomplishment reports on how the books were used in classroom instruction. As one literacy project closes for UII and NBSFI, they are now in the process of evaluating the three phases of the project. From there on, they shall draw up recommendations that will form as plans for the next literacy initiative.