Literacy Boost Belajar Indonesia Midline & Endline Report

In 2012, Save the Children began its Literacy Boost program in 20 schools in Belu district on West Timor Island, implementing both teacher-focused and community interventions. Literacy Boost teacher trainings began several months after the baseline assessment in July, and included training sessions featuring how to teach the five key reading skills (letter knowledge, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension) as well as how to follow learners’ progress in developing these skills using formative assessments. Broad -based community mobilization including establishing reading awareness, as well as Reading Camps and Book Banks in all villages surrounding the schools were rolled out over the school year before the next data collection in July 2013.

The key research questions to be explored in this report include:

1. What can students’ literacy score gains from 2013-2014 tell us about learners’ emergent reading skills? What does this mean for BELAJAR programming?
2. How do learners’ reading skills vary by student background, school environment, and home literacy environment? What does this mean for targeting BELAJAR’s two strands of intervention?
3. Who are the struggling students in 2014, and are they similar or different to those in 2013?