The foundation of a child to learn primarily lies on his ability to understand or construct meaning of

the basic principles that was taught in his/her early years. In fact, it has been found that majority of child’s
potential is manifested in this period because their growing curiosity as well as thinking abilities are
commonly challenged in this stage. It is therefore a necessity to equip a child with the very basic knowledge
he/she can use in the succeeding grades particularly the mastery of reading and the art of comprehension,
writing , counting and basic numeracy skills as it will serve as the his backbone to learn.

School institutions in the Philippines prioritize the quality of education to be given to young
learners but this aspect does not coincide with the current statistics especially here in Bicol. The
Department of Education has explained context of news report regarding the 70 000 Bicol kids being non-
readers. To elaborate on this, DepEd said that the story was based on raw data that they precisely gathered
to determine whether children at certain levels can read age-appropriate material. The data on which the
story was based in no way pictured the children as illiterate. The DepEd chief emphasized that the figure of
70,000 elementary students reported as being non-readers in both English and Filipino was “raw data” and
“is still for validation.” Despite this, it does not erase the fact that a lot of young learners need a proper
attention in their reading performance as reading will be their backbone in learning Mathematics, Science
and other subject matters. If the ability of the child to read, write and count was given a proper attention and
was developed in their early years, there would be a significant change in their performance in the
succeeding elementary years and that would somewhat help the teachers and the school institution as a
whole.

Regarding this matter, the proponents will provide the learners with the fundamental knowledge
appropriate to their grade level and will specifically target the learners’ areas difficulty by conducting four
(4) Saturday sessions to the class of interest. Three (3) hours will be utilized in each session with the first 2
hours dedicated to academic related activities and the last hour for skill building and development. The
project per se is implemented to help the learners deal with the difficulties that they commonly encounter
while learning as well assist to them in building their skills.

Justification
The commonly existing problems on academic performance of students experienced by most
school institutions is rooted not because of the students’ intellectual incapacities but because of how well the
students were molded and developed during their early or primary years of studying. Learners must develop
literacy and numeracy skills as much as possible during their early developmental process as this would serve to
be their basis in learning the different fields and subject matters. If not given a proper attention to internalize
these skills, underlying problems in academic performance will be expected in their journey to elementary
education. These problems in academic performance would not just be the primary concern that would arise
from the problem but the child’s personal view of himself as well as his/her level of confidence might be affected
as well. This would create a bigger and a more problematic situation to deal with.
 By providing the learners with the fundamental knowledge and strengthening what they have
learned in their classroom, the school institutions would experience less burden in dealing with the commonly
existing problems in students’ academic performance and would create many opportunities in the part of the
students. Students would experience less difficulty in mastering the concepts in each subject matter and they
would acquire the necessary knowledge appropriate to their grade level. In addition, the teachers or advisers on
the other part could accomplish or cover all or most of the lessons required in the curriculum if all students are
able to follow his/her lessons.