Reading is an essential skill to polish as it is a doorway to knowledge,

comprehension, and intellectual exploration. Thus, it is an essential life-long skill

that students need to develop to cope up with their lessons in varied subjects. A
student's academic career is more likely to go smoothly if they have a solid
reading foundation. On the other hand, if a student's reading foundation is weak,
he is more likely to struggle in the variety of disciplines that need for
comprehension.
Evidently, this is what happened during the 2018 PISA results when the
Philippines scored the lowest in reading comprehension among 79 participating
countries. Aside from being at the bottom in terms of reading comprehension, the
country also ranked the second lowest in Mathematics and Science. This shows
that raising student reading proficiency levels is essential for raising the
standard of education in classrooms.
As a result, the Department of Education released DepEd memorandum no.
173 s, which calls for strengthening schools' reading advocacy programs. of
2019, sometimes referred to as the "Hamon: Bawat Bata Bumasa" (3Bs) project,
aims to provide students with the reading abilities necessary to become excellent
and autonomous readers at the grade level to which they are assigned.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that the 3Bs initiative aims to decrease reading
gaps, the epidemic has made it difficult for each school to maintain its reading
programs.
To solve this predicament, DepEd Order no. 12 s. 2021 entitled amendment
to DepEd Order no. 7 s.2020 School Calendar and Activities for School year
2020-2021 presented a good chance for schools to conduct intervention and
remediation activities as stated in paragraph 3 of the said order. In addition, the
Department of Education also incorporated a reading program called Brigada sa
Pagbasa through DepEd Memorandum no. 48 s. 2021 also known as 2021
Brigada Eskwela Implementing Guidelines. Under this memorandum, Brigada
Eskwela will serve as an avenue to synergize efforts and resources to address the
gaps and challenges in literacy and numeracy so that quality education will be
achieved through the help of all stakeholders.
 Considering this, the researchers have decided to conduct a study on the
best practices and difficulties encountered by English teachers in select schools
in Cagayan in improving the reading skills of secondary learners because
programs for reading intervention and enhancement are crucial in assisting all
students in becoming proficient, self-assured readers.