Princess’s Progress: From Catching Up to Flourishing in School
For years, Princess’s days revolved around gathering water, washing dishes, and helping her mother at home. “I wasn’t in school,” remembers Princess. “We didn’t have enough money.”
That all changed when the free Luminos program arrived in her community in Liberia, offering children like Princess the chance to learn foundational reading, writing, and math skills for the first time.
She fondly recalls starting each day by reviewing the letters of the alphabet and their sounds—a routine that sparked her love for learning.
“I learned so many things! The program helped me learn how to read and write with phonics, and we played games outside to practice spelling.”
Princess, Luminos alum in Liberia
Her mother, Jenneh, was amazed by her progress. “She picked things up quickly and did well. She had a book about Sammy from school, and she could read the whole thing!” says Jenneh proudly. “I was so happy to see her reading.”
The skills Princess gained in the Luminos program set her up for success in her local government school. Entering fourth grade after completing the Luminos program, she quickly found herself keeping pace with her peers: an experience that boosted her confidence and deepened her love for learning. Now in seventh grade, Princess continues to excel, particularly in science, social studies, and reading. Her favorite subject? “Science! I like learning about the body,” she says confidently.
Her former government school teacher, Robert, still remembers the day she joined his class. “I first started teaching her in the fourth grade after she finished the Luminos program. While there were a lot of changes, for her, the lessons were easy compared to the other students,” he recalls. “The Luminos program was good for them—even in how it shaped her behavior. She liked to be in class and was always very respectful.”
Princess and fellow Luminos alum, Emmanuel, on the grounds of their government school with their former Luminos teacher (and current Luminos supervisor), Varney.
Princess dreams of using her love of science to help others. “I want to go to college and become a nurse. I want to help when people are sick. I want to see everybody feel well,” she says with determination.
Reflecting on her journey, Princess shares a simple but powerful belief: “It’s important for every child to go to school.” Princess’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of education.
At Luminos, we believe every child deserves this opportunity—and when given the chance, children like Princess don’t just catch up; they flourish.
In one year, a child in the Luminos Liberia program learns 90% of what the average Liberian will learn in their lifetime.
The learning that Luminos students achieve in just one school year is almost as much as the average Liberian achieves over their entire life. No other externally evaluated program in Liberia has come close to the learning gains documented through a recent evaluation of the Luminos program. [1]
This statistic not only highlights the remarkable impact of the Luminos program but also underscores the significant challenges facing the education system in Liberia. Luminos is honored to have such a strong presence in Liberia, including our partnership with government, to help more children achieve similarly remarkable results in the years ahead.
Read this story and others from our various country programs in our 2024 Annual Report!
To learn more about our Liberia program, click here.
Photo credit for this story: Mara Chan/Luminos Fund
[1] The Learning Adjusted Years of School expresses learning in comparison to what would be achieved in a high-quality education system within a year. This enables the comparison of learning outcomes across different contexts.
The Power of Writing
As Tizta’s fingers curl around a pencil, her words come to life through poetry, showcasing the writing skills that she developed as a recent graduate of the Luminos Fund program in Ethiopia.
One of eight children, Tizta moved from her rural community to live with her aunt and cousin in the eastern city of Dire Dawa when she was ten years old. At the time, she had been out of school for more than two years and had aged out of the mainstream school system. In Dire Dawa, Tizta enrolled in the Luminos program, where she caught up on missed foundational literacy and numeracy skills in ten months, enabling her to transition into grade 4 in a government school this year.
Learning
Learning is the key to knowledge
It answers the missing days
In short, when the lesson starts
I know not knowing is the main problem.
A poem by Luminos alum,
Tizta, age 12
When we talk about early childhood literacy, there is a tendency in the international education sector to focus on the critical importance of teaching children to read. This emphasis on reading is reinforced by the widespread use of literacy assessment tools, like the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), that test the ability of children to read letters, words, and sentences — but not their ability to write them. Yet true literacy can only be achieved through the combination of reading and writing skills.
A Luminos student in Liberia practices writing the alphabet in the early weeks of the program. (Photo: John Healey for the Luminos Fund)
Writing unlocks new forms of communication, self-expression, and creativity. There is also extensive evidence that learning to write enhances reading and comprehension skills. [1] As students learn to spell words, they internalize the relationships that exist between letter combinations and sounds, ultimately improving their ability to identify and blend those sounds to read words. At the same time, as students build familiarity with the conventions of writing (how to write letters between the lines in their notebook, how to add spaces between words, how to use punctuation, etc.), they become that much better equipped to navigate text on a page.
Writing unlocks new forms of communication, self-expression, and creativity.
Tizta outside her government school classroom.
“Education is very important! If you don’t get an education, you can’t reach where you want to go. It’s important to get an education so that you can achieve your dreams and become what you want to become.” says Tizta. (Photo: Mara Chan/Luminos Fund)
This is particularly important in the context of Luminos classrooms, where many students have limited prior exposure to print materials. As students progress to reading more complex sentences and stories, writing about those stories is a highly effective way to stretch and test their levels of comprehension and engagement with the core ideas in a text.
For Tizta, learning to read in the Luminos program was transformational, but so too was learning to write. When asked about her proudest accomplishment at school, Tizta shared, “The fact that I’m able to read — and the fact that I can write, because it allows me to write my poems.” Tizta first became interested in poetry after reading a book with a poem about Ethiopia. Now, when she has time, she likes to sit quietly by herself and write her own poetry. “Because I’m able to write,” she explains, “I can put my ideas into my poems.”
“Because I’m able to write, I can put my ideas into my poems.”
Tizta, Luminos alum
Learning to Write in the Luminos Program
In Luminos structured pedagogy programs in Ethiopia, children begin learning to write from day one. Our program is broken into three phases, each corresponding to a grade level in government schools. In Phase 1 (grade 1), children are introduced to new letters – and learn decodable syllables or words that use these letters – each day. [2]
Through a combination of “I do, we do, you do” activities, our students learn to recognize the sounds of the new letters, to read the letters, and to write the letters. In addition, students learn how to write at least one decodable word each day. In this phase, students practice writing in a variety of fun and engaging ways. They may start by tracing letter shapes in the air and working in groups to form the letters out of bottle caps, stones, or clay, before writing the letters on slate boards or in their notebooks. Students may finish a lesson by creating flashcards that are later used for a variety of interactive reading activities.
Students practice their letters and words by making letters out of clay. (Photo: Mekbib Tadesse for the Luminos Fund)
Sample letters in Tigrinya, the language of the Tigray region of Ethiopia, using bottle caps. (Photo: Mara Chan/Luminos Fund)
Students in the Tigray region of Ethiopia practice making letters and words out of stones. (Photo: Mara Chan/Luminos Fund)
Letters and words made out of stones in a Luminos classroom in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. (Photo: Mara Chan/Luminos Fund)
Student Birhan writes on a slateboard for her group during class. (Photo: Mara Chan/Luminos Fund)
Student Meselu writes in her notebook during class. (Photo: Mara Chan/Luminos Fund)
In Phases 2 and 3 (equivalent to grades 2 and 3), students are introduced to at least one reading passage a week. To help students read these texts with fluency, teachers focus on five vocabulary words from the passage each day. Students first practice reading the words by blending their component letter sounds together, and then spelling the words through dictation exercises. Finally, they demonstrate their understanding of the meaning of the words by using them in sentences (both orally and in writing).
A Luminos student notebook in Tigray, Ethiopia. (Photo: Noorun Khan/Luminos Fund)
At the beginning of the week, students write the full reading passage in their notebooks. We introduced this routine to ensure every child would have access to the text, even if they did not have their own their own copies of the textbook, and it has proved to be a very effective activity to improve handwriting and familiarity with sentence structure. As the week progresses, students annotate the passages in their notebooks: finding and underlining the vocabulary words of the day and identifying verbs and other grammatical structures. By Phase 3, students are asked to write answers to comprehension questions, including more open-ended inference questions.
For our students, the writing journey often starts with something as basic as learning how to properly hold a pencil for the first time. Their journey to mastering letters, words, and then complete sentences unlocks the power of writing. Luminos students often share how proud they are to write their names and the names of their family members – a quiet dignity from this hard-earned skill.
At Luminos, we believe that equipping children with foundational literacy and numeracy skills is essential to unlocking their full potential. After her experience in the Luminos program, Tizta has dreams of becoming a doctor or a teacher. Whichever path she chooses, she hopes to continue to write poems and do poetry readings in her spare time. While the education sector tends to measure success by focusing on gains in reading, Tizta’s poetry is a beautiful reminder of the transformative power of writing.
Tizta with her former Luminos teacher, Ms. Saron. Today, Tizta’s poems often feature her teachers and importance of education. When she grows up, Tizta says, “I want to become a teacher after completing university. I want to be a teacher so that I can educate those who haven’t had a chance to get an education.” (Photo: Mara Chan/Luminos Fund)
[1] Graham, S., and Hebert, M. A. (2010). Writing to read: Evidence for how writing can improve reading. A Carnegie Corporation Time to Act Report. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education. ccny_report_2010_writing.pdf (carnegie.org)
[2] Decodable words are words that include only the letter-sound relationships that students have been explicitly taught. For example, if they have been taught the most common sounds represented by the letters a, c, and t, “cat” would be a decodable word while “can” would not. Learn more in our “Phonics 101” blog here.
