Literacy Boost Malawi: Baseline Report 2012

This report examines the results of a primary school learner background survey and reading assessment conducted in April 2012. The survey and reading assessment covered 595 standard 2 learners throughout 30 schools in World Vision Malawi’s Matope, Midzemba, and Senzani ADPs, located in the southern region of Malawi. The 30 schools are split into 15 primary schools designated to receive Save the Children (SC)’s Literacy Boost program in partnership with World Vision Malawi, and 15 comparison primary schools receiving no intervention this school year.

The Literacy Boost program includes teacher training, community reading activities, and age-appropriate local language material creation to support emergent literacy skills among early-grade children. As part of Literacy Boost, learners are periodically assessed in each of these skills through an adaptable assessment tool to inform programming and estimate program impact. The data gathered from these schools is analyzed to present a snapshot of the emergent literacy skills of standard 2 learners in these schools and to inform the adaptation of SC’s Literacy Boost program to this context.

The critical purpose of this report is to test whether the Literacy Boost learners and the comparison learners are equal in terms of background and skills. That is, do these learners possess the same resources and capabilities? This question is important so that at end-line, we can know how much Literacy Boost has, or has not, contributed to learners’ accelerated reading development.