Even English-speaking eighth-graders flunked in Reading Comprehension

Test a group of eighth graders who speak English at home. Is their Reading Comprehension better than non-English speakers? Not necessarily.

- PIA ROCES MORATO

They may be able to read English with ease. But comprehension is different. It entails understanding, analysis, imagination.

I'm not referring only to Filipino eighth graders in whose homes English is used sometimes or often. I'm referring to the Reading Comprehension standing of eighth graders from 78 countries in the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Filipino eighth graders ranked poorest in Reading Comprehension. More alarming, most of the lowest scoring Filipinos came from homes where English is used.

Those are the findings of DepEd and government think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies.

Ricardo Nolasco, PhD, pointed up those figures to Congress last year. He spoke from decades of experience with language as instruction medium. He was chairman of Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino.

Incredulous, lawmakers bawled him out. They demanded that he prove his point about many English-speaking Filipinos faring worse in Reading Comprehension.

Yet evidence stared them in the face. In PISA 2018, native-English speaking New Zealanders were only 11th, Americans 13th and Australians 16th in Reading Comprehension.

Canada has two languages, English and French. Ireland has two: English, Irish. United Kingdom has three: English, Scottish, Welsh. In PISA 2018, Canada placed 6th, Ireland 8th and UK 13th in Reading Comprehension.