A traditional reading class will have rows of children seated at their desks, holding textbooks and reading aloud. These days, we may encounter a class playing a highly physical warm-up game, preparing students for the words they are about to encounter in their books.
Such new methods of engaging children to read are but a few of the teaching strategies cited by Reading Association of the Philippines (RAP) president Ani Rosa Almario-David. According to Almario-David, recognizing multiple intelligences in children helps a lot in facilitating the learning of students, as this is directly connected with developing basic skills, such as reading.
“Researchers told us that people have different kinds of intelligences,” said Almario-David, citing the studies of American development psychologist Dr. Howard Gardner, which began the shift in the 1990s towards an emphasis on harnessing multiple intelligences. “We have to tap into the particular intelligence of the learner in order to teach them to read better. If the kid is musically smart, let’s use songs and chants so they can better retain what they learn from reading.”
In the recent Progress Pre-School GOLD’s Multiple Intelligence Recognition Day held last March 26 at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium of RCBC Plaza, Makati, Almario-David, TV host Kim Atienza, and officials of Wyeth Philippines honored the country’s top multi-achiever students, chosen by Wyeth and a panel of leading Philippine educators through a nationwide search. Among them are Sofia Pablo (academics, dance and sports); Cedric Rafael Unson (leadership and the arts); Sean Clarence Cai (math and sports); Luis Raphael Danao (academics, sports and leadership); and Ciara Russegger (academics, sports and leadership).
According to Almario-David, the Filipino child has all that it takes to be a great learner. “I think children have a natural attraction to reading, kaya lang ang challenge ay ma-sustain ’yun. And if they don’t see models who read, if their parents don’t read, or if their teachers don’t encourage them to read, they will really give up in the habit.”
RAP’s teacher training programs, in line with Progress Pre-school Gold’s multiple intelligences advocacy, aim to equip teachers with skills that can help them maximize their students’ multiple intelligences to become excellent readers.
Since learning does not end in classrooms and workshops, Almario-David shared a tip that she herself practices on her young daughter, “To read to the child every day, and to show that you yourself enjoy reading. When my child and my students see me reading, they see it as a valuable activity, and they start to see it as a valuable activity for themselves, as well.”