Enhancing Reading Ability of Learners of Soong National High School During New Normal through Project R.E.A.L. M.E. (Read, Enjoy, And Learn More Effectively)

The author is Teacher Rodel R. Sienes, LPT

II at City of San Fernando West Integrated School, Division of City of San Fernando The central tenet of students' academic achievement is that learners should know how to read. Reading is often challenging for learners because they do not understand the reading process, since face-to-face classes are impossible. Today, students are supposed to understand, practice, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and compose information. Since information is growing and getting more complicated day by day, students should have multimedia literacy skills to access all kinds of texts, including traditional texts, visuals, and hypertexts (Dakich et al.,2014). Traditional storytelling has been used to improve students' literacy skills by activating their language skills, such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Digital reading is all around us; videos, podcasts, and commercials use words paired with images to share meaningful stories with a wide range of people. Digital reading helps us connect to people no matter where they are located. We can learn a great deal about each other from our smartphones, tablets, and computers. Sharing stories is a great way to connect with people. In hearing a story, you may relate to another person and identify with their situation. Digital reading adds to regular storytelling by allowing readers to include images, pictures, music, and other things in their stories. This guide can help you plan, organize, and create a digital story. It includes helpful, easy-to-use resources for each stage of the process. (Samhsa, 2019). This action research utilized the enhancing phenomenon of the reading ability of learners using an innovation called Project REAL ME (Read, Enjoy, And Learn More Effectively). By testing its effectiveness, the teacher conducted an experimental design to progress this study, especially in the pandemic. The new normal setup requires a growing clamor on how to give a chance to the reading class since the said matter requires logical and analytical methods. With the advent of technology, learning has become possible. Reading can be interactive and fun with various apps that help learners partake in the learning process. Teachers should learn how to contextualize reading lessons and transform them into fun elements while learning reading. With the newfound way of teaching reading, learners have been observed during the live stream on our Facebook page and using various applications such as Steamyard, Quizzizz, and Kahoot apps. They were actively participating and feeling engaged in reading in the comfort of their homes. This pandemic helps teachers incorporate reading into meaningful and exciting opportunities to learn reading at home.