STEPS  (Specialized training and education for philippine students)

STEPS (Specialized Training and Education for Preschool Students) is an educational program that prepares preschoolers for school. The activity involves the parents in the learning experience of their children. It was created in response to a great need for better education for children in public schools. It’s said that 40% of Elementary students in public schools don’t know how to read, and only 20% of the 3-4 year-olds attend day care centers. 

STEPS supplements and enhances the education of under-privileged children and imparts moral values. It is a teaching aid that helps preschoolers learn effectively with the assistance of dedicated teachers and the involvement and loving care of their parents. We give 10 months courses in which we teach daily many children in groups of 20. We keep the groups on purpose small to individualize our teaching and cater to each child's needs.

Goal: To provide quality basic education for Philippine preschoolers from depressed areas and hereby promote an interest in education; to support their character building through learning God's word.

Curriculum: We have created our own curriculum that is patterned to Filipino mindsets, using audio-visual tools and a combination of different modern teaching methods. Our classes involve reading, writing, character building stories, English comprehension, simple math, art, singing and performing. 

Expanding STEPS: in year 2019 we have been gradually expanding our STEPS teaching program to several municipalities and places on the island of Samar, such as Catarman, Calbayog, Tagapul-an, Lope de Vega, San Jorge, etc, and we have plans for expansion in several places on Bohol island. For more info on the expansion, please see here.
 
Ongoing progress: Most of the children that were taught in our STEPS preschools are among the top ten of their respective Kindergarten and Primary school classes. For current updates please check our Blog page 

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"School is not a place, but a learning experience that helps us understand, appreciate, and enjoy the life God has created for us."
​STEPS Parents Orientation: We start off each STEPS preschool program by informing the parents of the program goals, teaching them the how-to's, and providing them with the tools to work with the children at home.

STEPS Teachers Seminars: In our Teachers' Seminars we share new and improved teaching methods to daycare and school teachers who have been successful at implementing these methods at their centers.

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Videos of children reading & Learning
Here you see the reading progress of the STEPS Group 2017 from month one to the end of month two! It is truly amazing how fast these children have learned!
​The parents are deeply involved and very enthusiastic about their children's reading progress, and participate in their learning at home. "School starts at Home" is our motto!
A small glimpse into one of our classes, where teacher Ellen is teaching the children to count. We have 2 - 4 year olds in this class.

​Below you see more videos of STEPS preschoolers reading from earlier years
March 2016: Valerie, 3, after 6 months of STEPS reading program
Alex, 4, after 5 months of STEPS-schooling is reading book 7
Alex, 4, is reading book 6 of 12, after only 3 months of STEPS program
March 2016: Franches, 5, after 6 months of STEPS preschool
Jilian, 3, is learning to read with our STEPS program
Steps students reciting the Alphabet and numbers 1 - 100
When the STEPS preschoolers graduate from our one-year course, they usually join Kindergarten. But not all of them are accepted since some of them are still very young. 

Instead of going to daycare centers and learning the same skills again as in our STEPS courses, they join in our progressive STEPS group, where we practice reading and go deeper into phonics, writing, math etc. 

In the course of the school year, we sometimes change the preschool groups to fit the students’ level of progress. In the advanced groups we concentrate besides reading and simple math on more writing and phonics. 


​STEPS Progressive & Phonics Program

In order to expand the STEPS program and ensure the reading progress of the children, we have started to teach Phonics to local primary school students from the nearby Elementary School. The children learn in an interactive Phonics computer program in our mission center. Just like in our STEPS preschool program, we involve the parents in order to generate a greater awareness, support and interest.

Since beginning of January 2020, we have been assisting the teachers in the nearby primary school. After first assessing the reading progress of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade students, about 300 students all in all, we started teaching the 3 first-grade classes in Phonics.

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