Literacy Program Baseline Report.
1. Activity Summary
2
2. Sample Size and Process
2
3. Baseline Questionnaire
2
4. Findings
2
4.1. Demographics & general reading questions.
2
4.2. Flat Assessment.
4
4.3. Environmental Awareness
4
5. Recommendations
5
6. Conclusion
5
1. Activity Summary
The baseline took place between 8-15 November. The main purpose of this activity was to understand
the reading ability as well as the knowledge of the children around environmental health awareness.
The activity took place before any intervention was made. The intervention is the introduction of the
literacy project that focuses on improving the reading skills of children aged 8-15 years as well as
knowledge of environmental awareness. The activity took place at Mulwani Primary school grounds
in Dambwa north where the literacy will be taking place. Data was collected by 3 volunteers who
were trained and will be part of the literacy project.
2. Sample Size and Process
The baseline applied convenience sampling method that falls under non-probability sampling. The
literacy project will have a total of 66 beneficiaries as such the children that were at the grounds early
at the grounds were asked the questions from the baseline survey. The respondents were in the age
ranges of 8 - 15 and in grades 1 - 7 and the mean age being 11. In terms of gender, we had 38 boys out
of 54 respondents which made up about 70% and 16 (30%) were girls.
3. Baseline Questionnaire
The questionnaire that was used had 3 sections that covered 1) General questions about reading and
demographics, 2) Flat Assessment questions, and 3) Questions on environmental awareness.
4. Findings
4.1. Demographics & general reading questions.
In the first section, our focus was to understand the current reading practices of the children at home
and at school. The responses in this section were self-reported by the children. When asked if they
were able to read, 45(83%) of the children said they could read and 9(16%) responded that they were
unable to read. The following question looked at whether they practice reading at home or not, to
which the response was yes from 61% of the respondents and no from 39% of the respondents, a
follow-up question was asked on how often those who practice reading at home practice reading, 22%
said more than 3 times a week, 18% said once and week, 13% said 3 times a week and 7% said they
practice reading at home twice a week (see chart below)
We also asked if they practice reading at school and how often it was practiced. 75% said they
practice reading at school while 25% said they did not practice reading at school. And of the 41(75%)
that said they did practice reading at school, 37% said they practiced reading more than 3 times a
week, 20% said once a week, 9% percent said twice a week and the remaining 9% said 3 times a week
(see chart below)
We also asked if the respondents have been part of any reading club in the past, 57% said to have not
been part of any reading club and 43% said that had been part of a reading club before.
This was the last question for this section.
4.2. Flat Assessment.
The second group of questions focused on assessing the reading capabilities of the respondents. The
method used was the Functional Literacy Assessment Tool (FLAT) which is widely used to assess the
highest level of reading children can perform comfortably and focuses on 5 main reading levels which
are letter reading level, word reading level, paragraph reading level, story reading level, and
comprehension reading level. After the assessment, it was noticed that 69% were at letter reading
level meaning that they were able to identify and point out 9 out of 10 letters correctly as per FLAT
standard. 56% of the respondents are on word reading level as they were able to read 4 out 5 common
words correctly while 44% were not able to read 4 out 5 common words and therefore are not on word
reading level. When it came to paragraph reading level, only 33% were able to read a paragraph
(reading a text like a sentence fluently while 67% percent were unable to read a full paragraph or
made a number of mistakes. For the story reading level, only 30% were able to read a story fluently,
and the remaining 70% were not able to. As for comprehension, only 25% were able to fluently read
the story and answer the questions that followed meaning only 25% of the children are on the
comprehension reading level.
4.3. Environmental Awareness
As part of this project focuses on environmental awareness, the third and final section looked at the
environmental awareness knowledge of the children. When asked if they have heard of global
warming 95% reported having not heard of it while 5% reported having heard of it when asked what it
is the responses are shown in the table below.
We also asked if they knew what climate change is, 87% said they did not know what it was while
13% responded that they knew what it was and the graph and table below show a breakdown of their
understanding based on the responses that were provided.
We asked the respondents if people caused climate change, and 33% said yes while 67% said no. And
when asked if the respondents thought global warming was the same as climate change, 81%
responded false and the remaining 19% responded true. 37% believed weather and climate change
are the same while 63% believe that the two are different, 54% believed climate change is causing the
sea level to rise while 46% believed it is not. And lastly, we asked if they believe there is a way we
can stop climate change, 46% said yes while 54% said no. This gave us an overview of current beliefs
and knowledge levels which we hope to influence in the next year.
5.
Recommendations
Based on the data that was collected. The following recommendations have been made on how best
the project can go ahead.
● Both volunteers and project officer notice the slow readers and pair them with the best
readers.
● Strategically make the buddy reading books.
●
6.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the activity went well with minor challenges. The data collectors were able to ask the
question in a way that the young respondents were able to understand and respond accordingly.