Manila, Sept. 16 -- Some 343,920 learners from Grades 1 to 10 in Eastern Visayas will be covered by the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) Program, to assist struggling readers this academic year.

The Department of Education (DepEd) regional office here reported on Tuesday that the figure represents 40.29 percent of 853,510 learners currently enrolled in Grades 1 to 10.

The majority of the target learners, or 157,230, are secondary students whose performance is three school years below their expected grade level based on the result of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI).

Some 99,412 of them have been identified as struggling readers (both elementary and secondary) found through the Comprehensive Rapid Lit...