MOTHER TONGUE BASED

MULTILINGUAL
EDUCATION FRAMEWORK:
ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN
BASIC EDUCATION
CURRICULUM
THE REQUIRED
LEARNING AREAS
FROM
KINDERGARTEN TO
GRADE 6
THE KINDERGARTEN CURRICULUM DOMAINS
 The Department of Education recognizes the importance
of preschool education to support the holistic development
of every Filipino child through the inclusion of
Kindergarten in the K-12 Philippine Basic Education
Program.
Republic Act 10157 also known as the Kindergarten
Education Act signed into law by President Benigno Aquino
III on January 20, 2012, makes kindergarten “the first stage
of compulsory and mandatory formal education.” For public
schools, the kindergarten education program will be
compromised of one year of preschool education for
children aged five and above.
 Kindergarteners are constantly developing in different
domains. Beginning at early age, they must be cared for and
given all opportunities to address current developmental needs
and to prepare them to life-long. These domains are as follows:
1. Physical health, well-being and motor development
2. Creative and aesthetic development
3. Socio- emotional development
4. Character and values development
5. Cognitive/ intellectual development
6. Language development
THE REQUIRED
LEARNING AREAS
FROM
KINDERGARTEN TO
GRADE 6
The Transitioning of Kindergarten Domains to Grade 1 Learning Areas
 Kindergarten education generally addresses
developmental domains of 5- year old children as
cited earlier. But the domains seem amorphous,
hence, learning areas are identified.
The learning areas transition the domain- based
curriculum of kindergarten to the content- based
curriculum of Grade 1-10. The design allows for a
smooth transition from kinder to grade 1.
 The K-12 curriculum focuses on 21st century
competencies which support lifelong learning.
Competencies include those proficiencies that
learners employ to make sense of what they learn,
solve problems, make informed and intelligent
decisions, and take stands on issues. Core
competencies adhere to content standards and
performance standards for every area of learning.
THE FOURTEEN
DOMAINS OF
LITERACY IN THE
PHILIPPINE MTB-
MLE CURRICULUM
1. ORAL LANGUAGE
Teachers need to think about using strategies that motivate
children to communicate with each other with ease and much fun.
Therefore, exposure of children to an abundance of language in their
everyday lives should be prime importance when teachers makes
their language learning plans.
In the context of DepEd MTB-MLE program, oral languages
refers to one’s knowledge and use of the structure, meanings and
uses of language in oral communication.
Roskos et.al (2009) present an expanded notion of
oral language with 5 primary areas, namely:
1. SEMANTICS- developing meanings for the
words children hear and say in their conversation
with other.
2. SYNTAX- Learning the rules of how words are
linked together.
3. MORPHOLOGY- Figuring out how to manifest
the smallest units of meanings in the language
called morphemes.
4. PHONOLOGY- Understanding the sound
structure of language. From birth onward or even
before childbirth, children learn all the sounds or
phonemes of their language.
5. PRAGMATICS- Understanding the social uses of
language and basic social rules like saying
“hello” and “goodbye”, saying “please” and
“thank you”, and tking turns in the coversation
 Oral language is the foundation of learning to read
and write. Essential to the teacher’s development of a
language learning plan is the understanding that oral
language is the foundation of learning to read and
write.
Therefore, it is important to remember that as
children gain confidence and competence in
communicating with each other, they should be
provided with stimulating and varied experiences to
help them with their print experience at the starting
line of learning reading and writing skills and
strategies.
2. PHONOLOGICAL
AWARENESS
This refers to the ability to know the phonological ,or sound
structure of language as distinct from its meaning. Types of
phonological awareness include word awareness, syllable awareness,
rhyme awareness and phoneme awareness.
The key to learning to read is the understanding that words are
made up of one or more sounds. Children need to understand that
each letter of the alphabet system has one or more sounds and that
these letter sounds are used to make words. It has been stressed that
“phonemic awareness is the main predictor of whether or not a child
will learn to read at the expected age”, (Christina and Lynch 2000)
3. BOOK AND PRINT
KNOWLEDGE
This domain pertains to knowing the parts of a
book and how print works. It also refers to the
awareness of how print looks. Further, is the ability to
understand that print is made up of letters, that letters
correspond to sounds and words as that text is read
from left to right across the page.
4. ALPHABET KNOWLEDGE
It is the ability to know the letters of the alphabet and the
understanding that the alphabet represents the sounds of spoken
languages.
An emergent reader should know that each letter of the alphabet
has a name, a distinct sound, and an upper and lower case. Alphabet
letters are the building blocks of the writing system.
Alphabet knowledge also refers to the understanding that the left
– to – right spelling of printed works represents their phoneme from
first to last.
5. PHONICS AND WORD
RECOGNITION
One of the goals of beginning reading is to be able to
identify a written word by sight or by deciphering the
relationship between speech sounds and the letters in
written language.
Emergent and beginning readers are expected to
understand the system of matching the sounds we speak
with printed letters that are used for reading and writing.
 Mother tongue, like other languages that use
alphabets, provides a systematic code that allows
learners to recognize words accurately.
To crack the print- sound code, children must leap
from phonemic awareness to understanding the print-
sound code. This happens when they make the
connection that the visual symbols of letters represent
particular sounds.
6. VOCABULARY
DEVELOPMENT
This refers to the knowledge of words and their meanings in both oral and
print representations.
Vocabulary is organized into two large types:
1. Expressive vocabulary- those words children can use to express themselves
in oral and written form.
2. Receptive vocabulary- those words children can understand when heard in
context or read.
In the primary grades, learning what words mean and how to use them is a
vital undertaking. Words help children read, learn and understand their world.
Thus, the larger and richer vocabularies children have, the better they are able to
learn and do.
7. SPELLING
Early or beginning readers and writers should be able to convert oral
language sounds into printed language symbols.
In their early years, all children should be exposed to learning experiences
characterized by an abundance of language in their day – to – day living. Here,
conversations are not empty chatter but rather talk that tells about ideas, people,
events and other topics that help children understand new knowledge and make
meaning in social and academic situations.
It is not enough that children can engage themselves in meaningful
conversations. They need to move from learning oral skills to literacy. They
need to break the written language code. This is where spelling skills and
strategies matter.
While it is true that children should be encouraged to write
freely their thoughts and feelings at their early literacy
stage using invented spellings they should gradually shift to
using spelling conventions.
Children have to make the mental connection that the
visual symbols letters and spelling represent distinct
sounds. Spellings- sound pattern in Filipino languages are
easy to learn but in English, irregularities between sound
and letters are very evident.
Research makes clear that once children learn the
systematic way that spellings stand for sounds, they extend
this knowledge in discovering spelling regularities when
they encounter the same spelling pattern again and again
especially in repetitive and predictable texts.
8. GRAMMAR AWARENESS
This refers to both the language we use and the description of
language as a system.
It is the ability to understand the rules of how words are linked
together to convey meanings.
From birth, children acquire their home language by their
exposure to family conversations and daily activities. They learn the
words their family members use and form their own grammar rules
in putting words together to express their ideas, reactions, opinions.
 Teachers should purposively teach children about
language and how to effectively develop listening,
speaking, reading, writing and viewing skills and
strategies.
In learning mother tongue using the two- track
method, meaning precedes accuracy. Here children
learn about the language in meaningful contents by
listening to stories, rhyme, chants, poems and other test
types through read aloud, substantive conversations
total physical response (TPR): body, positive, object,
story.
9. FLUENCY
This refers to the fluidity of utterances (oral fluency) or the oral reading of texts smoothly
(reading fluency), not hindered by word – by – word reading and other word recognition
problems that might adversely affect comprehension. It is also writing without thinking about
how to form a letter before writing (writing fluency) (Crystal, 1994)
In the DepEd MTB-MLE Curriculum Guide the notion of fluency seems confined only to
reading fluency.
Reading fluency has 3 elements:
1. Automaticity- the ability to recognize words quickly and without much conscious attention.
2. Accuracy- the ability to recognize words correctly. It reflects 2 important concepts:
knowledge of the print-sound relationship and an understanding of meaning.
3. Prosody or Proper Expression- the ability to read aloud with appropriate intonations and
pauses indicating that the learners understand the meaning of the text.
10. READING
COMPREHENSION
The literacy domain gives prime importance to the
ultimate goal of reading which is to understand the meaning
of written languages.
Unpacking the text is a complex task that employs a
variety of skills and strategies. Learners must draw on what
they already know about the topic and all the words that
convey it to be able to make sense of what the author
means.
 This domain refers to the process of constructing and
negotiating meaning from print (Gunning, 2003).
a. Schema- this is the organized knowledge that an
individual has about people, places, things and events
that are triggered when constructing and negotiating
meaning from print.
b. Activating prior knowledge- According to
Cameron(2009) prior knowledge is the unique set of
knowledge each individual learner brings to the reading
experience. It is a combination of the learners’ attitudes,
experience and knowledge.
c. Comprehension Strategies- In the MTB-MLE
Curriculum Guide, 2014, comprehension strategies
include preparing, organizing, elaborating, releasing and
monitoring the reading process.
Three factors that influence learners’ ability to understand
texts:
1. The complexity of words and sentences, including
comprehending informational or factual texts
2. Conceptual complexity
3. Learners’ background knowledge about the topic
d. Text types

narrative texts stories

fantasy novels bedtime stories
historical fiction information texts
11. WRITING AND COMPOSING
This is the process of using the writing system or
orthography in the conduct of people’s lives and in
the transmission of their culture to the next
generation.
It also refers to the process or result of recording
language graphically by hand or by other means as
by letters, logograms, and other symbols.
 In the MTB-MLE Curriculum Guide, composing
refers to the ability to formulate ideas into sentences,
or longer texts and represent them in the conventional
or non- conventional orthographic patterns of written
language.
As the performance standards for the third grade
level point, learners are expected to express their ideas
effectively in formal and informal composition to
fulfill their own purposes for writing.
12. HANDWRITING
In the MTB-MLE Curriculum Guide of DepEd, this
domain refers to the ability to form letters through
manuscript and cursive styles.
Performance standards by the end of the third grade is
writing legibly in cursive style.
13. ATTITUDE TOWARDS LANGUAGE,
LITERACY AND LITERATURE
This domain refers to the process of reflecting ethical
consideration on the use ideas and information; the use of language
in appreciating contexts and situations considering the culture of the
audience (Language Arts and Multiliteracies Curriculum, DepEd K
to 12 Curriculum, 2011 Draft) It refers to the ability to make choices
on the texts to read coming from a wide range of genres that serve
the purpose for reading: reading for enjoyment, or reading for
learning.
14. STUDY STRATEGIES
These are deliberate, planned procedures designed to
help a learner reach a goal. These include the use of graphic
organizers, marginal notes, research, etc. (Gunning, 2003)
They also refer to techniques and strategies that help an
individual effectively learn from specific purpose.
THE END