Literacy Boost Creating strong literacy foundations for early grade learners

World Vision and Save the Children’s partnership for literacy began in October 2011 with a three-year project implemented in a selection of World Vision area development programmes (ADPs) in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi. Rwanda was added in 2013. This project adapts and implements Save the Children’s Literacy Boost, an innovative programme to support the development of reading skills in young children. Literacy Boost holistically pursues the goal of literacy by:

1. Mobilising parents and communities to support children as they learn to read through fun out-of-school literacy activities that foster children’s love of reading

2. Training teachers to incorporate five core reading skills into their regularly scheduled curricula

3. Creating an abundance of locally relevant reading materials in mother tongue

4. Assessing children’s reading levels and evaluating their literacy learning needs based on those assessments

Literacy Boost forms a critical component of World Vision’s transition in education sector programming, enhancing technical capacity and programming tools to help achieve the organisation’s global target for increasing the percentage of children aged 11 who can read.

Literacy Boost Plus: Citizen Voice and Action

Family and community play a vital role in providing and supporting a child’s learning environment, within and outside the formal education system. World Vision is enhancing the Literacy Boost programme through Citizen Voice and Action, a unique approach to increase awareness of government policies related to education services, and to facilitate engagement of community with education authorities in addressing gaps and shortfalls through advocacy, as well as through community action plans.

• Citizen Voice and Action improves accountability from the administrative and political sectors of government (both local and national) in order to improve the quality of education services.

• Using the Citizen Voice and Action approach, World Vision builds on local level literacy activities by expanding the focus of change to a systems level.

Target outcomes

• Strengthened classroom literacy instruction for improved core reading skills

• Increased participation of girls and boys in community and home-based literacy activities

• Sustainable systems and structures, which enable key partners to work cohesively to improve children’s literacy learning

World Vision will rapidly expand the programme through strong technical assistance and support over the next three years. By 2016, World Vision will implement Literacy Boost in 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia.

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Children attend an informal Literacy Boost learning session where they access locally relevant teaching materials

and practise their reading skills in Ethiopia.

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organisation dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.

Contact:Cameron Ryall | Literacy Programme ManagerEast Africa Regional Office | World Vision InternationalE-mail: Cameron_Ryall@wvi.org

Literacy Boost improves learning outcomes in EthiopiaLiteracy Boost has significantly impacted children’s learning outcomes in Ethiopia after only six months of programming, according to an assessment conducted at the end of 2013.

In Ethiopia, Literacy Boost was implemented in 15 schools in two districts of the Oromia Region mid-way through the school year. Nearly 600 students from these schools, as well as 21 control schools, were assessed.

The following are highlights in the areas of reading, teacher training and community support to literacy achievement:

• 35 per cent of Literacy Boost students became new readers, compared to 19 per cent in the comparison schools

• 64 per cent of Literacy Boost students showed improved emergent reading skills compared to 30 per cent in comparison schools

• 8,350 children – nearly half of whom were girls – attended reading camps

In 2014, World Vision Ethiopia will scale Literacy Boost to three new language groups (for a total of four) in four regions and from two pilot ADPs to a total of 25.

Aklilu Kassaye / World Vision

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Literacy Boost attracts early readers with reading camps in KenyaIn April, 2013, 26 reading camps were established through the Literacy Boost Project in Kenya. Each reading camp has a book bank with an average of 800 books. To date, 21,900 books (47 titles) have been made available to children through the book banks.

According to an official from the Ministry of Education, before Literacy Boost was introduced many children spent their weekends wandering the market without anything to do. Now, children spend their free time reading, writing and playing with their friends at the reading camps.

The offical believes that the programme will contribute to enhanced reading and writing skills in the children attending the district’s Literacy Boost intervention schools.

“Literacy Boost has made our belief of investing in brains [rather] than rains stronger, for we believe that with this project our district will never have the issues of children reaching class four without knowing how to read,” said the offical.

World Vision Kenya is implementing Literacy Boost in the two ADPs. The project goal is to improve the literacy results of 33,000 girls and boys in 130 primary schools in Kenya by 2015.