The Department of Education (DepEd) in the Philippines announced that approximately 4.5 million struggling readers enhanced their literacy skills by the end of the 2025-2026 school year. This improvement is based on assessments including the Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment (CRLA) and the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI). Education Secretary Sonny Angara emphasized that targeted interventions in foundational literacy and numeracy played a crucial role in this progress. Notably, the number of students requiring urgent help dropped from 6.7 million to 2.2 million, with the most significant improvements observed in Grades 1 to 3, where struggling readers decreased by 33%. Additionally, the count of 'grade-level ready' readers surged from 3.3 million to 5.8 million. DepEd also reported a reduction in learners identified as 'not or low proficient' in Mathematics, decreasing from 13 million to 6.8 million. Moving forward, DepEd plans to enhance its measures for Grades 7 to 10 to ensure continued progress.