In Luminos classrooms, we use a systematic and explicit phonics-based approach to teach children to read. But what is phonics and why do we use it?
Phonics is a step-by-step way of teaching children to decode and recognize new words rather than just memorizing words by sight. At the start of a systematic phonics approach, children are taught the simplest relationships between letters and their corresponding sounds, such as the letters b, a, and t. Then children can begin decoding simple words by identifying the individual sounds represented by each letter and blending them together to pronounce a word. For example, children that have already learned the sounds for the corresponding letters b, a, and t, will be able to decode the word “bat” and pronounce it (/b/ /a/ /t/). Lessons then gradually progress to cover more complex relationships between letters and sounds, enabling students to read a wide range of new words.
The reason we use phonics is simple: it is proven to be the best way to teach children how to read.[1]
Blending Sounds to Read Words
In a phonics-based approach to literacy, students practice identifying the individual sounds of letters and blending them together to read syllables and words. For example, they identify that the letters in the word “tin” represent the sounds /t/ /ɪ/ /n/, and then they blend those sounds together to read the word.
In Liberia, student Sam practices reading by breaking down a difficult word into its component sounds before blending them together to read the word.
“The reason we use phonics is simple: it is proven to be the best way to teach children how to read.”
While some children may be able to learn to read through a less structured approach, phonics is significantly more effective and inclusive. For example, research shows that phonics is particularly beneficial for children with learning differences such as dyslexia, and that it particularly benefits students from low-income backgrounds and those who do not speak the language of instruction as their first language.[2] For first-generation readers who are growing up in a home without books or parents who can read to them, phonics instruction is equipping them with the tools they need to become independent, confident readers.
What strikes many people when they first see phonics instruction is that it involves a lot of repetition. The debate on how to teach children is fueled by such judgments, with some arguing that this repetition stifles creativity, but this is misguided. It is precisely because we want children to develop critical thinking skills and creativity that phonics approaches are so effective. Learning to read with phonics means that the process of decoding words becomes completely automatic, and children can focus on higher-order skills like comprehension, fluency, and yes, critical thinking and creativity.
A useful analogy, for those of us who perhaps cannot remember learning to read, is to think about how you learned to type.
“I learned in my early 20s using the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing program,” shares Dr. Kirsty Newman, Vice President of Programs at Luminos. “It involved a lot of repetition, but now that I have developed the skills, I can type without even having to use my thinking brain at all – it feels completely automatic. This means that my conscious brain can be fully utilized to create and problem-solve.”
Teaching literacy with phonics enables a similar phenomenon for reading – children learn how to decode text automatically, leaving them with plenty of brain power left over for analysis, problem-solving, and so forth. Thus, the old adage really comes true – “first, you learn to read and then you read to learn.”
The Impact of Phonics in Liberia
In 2016, the Luminos Fund expanded our accelerated learning program from Ethiopia to Liberia. Liberia had one of the highest rates of out-of-school children in the world and our top priority was improving students’ reading skills. We began using an approach that has worked well in Ethiopia, supplementing the government curriculum with games and activities that encouraged student participation and joyful learning.
However, we soon found that students were not learning as expected; although they were engaged and having fun, they still were unable to read even simple words. With only 10 months in our program, we urgently needed to find a solution that would equip children with the necessary literacy and numeracy skills to be successful in government schools. After a deeper analysis of the government curriculum and a review of alternative approaches being used in the country, we decided to implement a phonics-based program created by a local non-governmental organization (NGO).
The impact of the new materials and methods was clear; students were soon reading with a level of fluency we had not seen before. Recent project evaluations continue to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach: our students in Liberia typically start the program able to identify just a few letters of the alphabet, and after 10 months they can graduate reading at an average of 39 words per minute. By learning quickly and frequently experiencing success, students grow their self-belief, propelling them on their learning journey.
“At first it was a bit difficult, as it was a new way of teaching for our teachers, but they soon saw the progress that students were making. That was very motivating for them, they could see that children were actually reading for themselves.”
Alphanso G. Menyon, Liberia Program Coordinator, Luminos Fund
[1] The National Reading Panel’s meta-analysis of literacy research, published by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD] (2000), found “solid support for the conclusion that systematic phonics instruction makes a bigger contribution to children’s growth in reading than alternative programs providing unsystematic or no phonics instruction.” Shanahan and August (2006) found that the research on second language learners also demonstrated the importance of a phonics-based approach.
[2]August D. & Shanahan T. (2006); NICHD, 2000; Machin, S., McNally, S. & Viarengo, M. (2018) Changing how literacy is taught: evidence on synthetic phonics. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 10(2), 217–241.
In 2016, the Luminos Fund launched its accelerated, catch-up learning program in Liberia to help address the country’s urgent education needs – including one of the world’s highest recorded rates of out-of-school children. To date, Luminos has helped 12,650 Liberian children catch up on learning and reintegrate into local government schools. In addition, Luminos has trained 497 young adults on our pedagogy and model, and supported them to deliver the catch-up program in classrooms.
During the 2021-22 school year, the Luminos program increased children’s oral reading fluency (ORF) by 28 correct words per minute (CWPM), with girls progressing 3 CWPM more than boys. Students also made substantial gains in numeracy, with a 28 percentage point improvement in addition and a 20 percentage point improvement in subtraction. Our latest report, “Liberia 2021-22 Endline Evaluation Report,” summarizes results from the 2021-22 Luminos program endline evaluation conducted by Q&A Services. [1]
In 2021-22, the Luminos program ran for 9 months—from November to August— in line with the Ministry of Education’s 2021-22 official academic calendar; this calendar was shifted slightly compared to a standard, September – June calendar due to COVID-19. Luminos students attended class for 7 hours per day from Monday to Friday, with approximately 5 hours per day devoted to reading and 2 hours to numeracy.
Luminos supported 3,150 out-of-school students across 105 classes and five counties (Bomi, Bong, Grand Cape Mount, Margibi, and Montserrado) in Liberia. Every year, Luminos works closely with a small group of community-based partners, each of which manages a cluster of classrooms, to deliver the program.
The results of the evaluation show that the Luminos Fund’s Liberia program positively impacted student reading and math outcomes across all EGRA and EGMA subtasks in the 2021-22 school year.
Evaluation Overview
The evaluation aimed to demonstrate the impact of the Luminos Liberia program on student literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional outcomes during the 36-week 2021-22 program. Q&A Services assessed the literacy and numeracy levels of a random sample of students across all Luminos classes in the first two weeks of the program (baseline) and again in the final week of the program (endline). The RTI/USAID-developed Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) tools, adapted for Liberia, were used at both baseline and endline to assess students on a variety of early grade reading and math skills. A socio-emotional learning (SEL) assessment was also conducted with a subset of the student sample using the International Social Emotional Learning Assessment (ISELA) tool. For more details on the evaluation and methods used, please see the full report summary.
Overall Results
The results of the evaluation show that the Luminos program positively impacted student achievement in both reading and math.
Literacy
On reading, students showed improvement across every EGRA subtask, including an improvement of 50 percentage points on letter identification, 46 percentage points on oral reading fluency (ORF) of Grade 2 level text, 39 percentage points on familiar words, and 33 percentage points on reading comprehension. For ORF, students could read 29 CWPM at endline, compared to 1 CWPM at baseline, an improvement of 28 CWPM.
Numeracy
On numeracy, students again showed improvement across every single EGMA subtask, including an improvement of 35 percentage points on number identification, 33 percentage points on number discrimination, 28 percentage points on addition, 20 percentage points on subtraction, and 22 percentage points on word problems. While the program impacted student achievement on mathematics, improvement was less significant than for literacy. This makes sense given that 5 hours of the Luminos school day (approximately 70% of instructional time) is devoted to literacy and 2 hours each day (30% of instructional time) is devoted to numeracy.
Conclusion
The results of the evaluation show that the Luminos Fund’s Liberia program positively impacted student reading and math outcomes across all EGRA and EGMA subtasks in the 2021-22 school year. Results show that the average student improved by 28 CWPM within the 9-month program, with girls improving 3 CWPM more than boys. These results are incredibly impressive given the short (9-month) timeframe for the Luminos program. Results for the SEL assessment show improvement on self-concept, particularly for girls, suggesting possible impact of the Luminos program on broader student development; however, further research is required. When compared with similar programs in Liberia and globally, year on year the Luminos program is showing strong learning outcomes, particularly on literacy.
To read the full report summary, including additional background on our Liberia program and a more detailed overview of the evaluation and methods used, click here.
References:
Simpson, A. “Luminos Fund Endline Evaluation 2021-22, Liberia,” Q&A Services, December 2022.
At the Luminos Fund, our work is driven by a commitment to help children learn an incredible amount in a short time: three years of school in just 10 months. As the Country Manager for our Liberia program, my team and I set ambitious targets to ensure all our students build foundational learning skills — and we measure their progress along the way, in real-time, often using data averages to gain quick insights.
While averages are helpful, we’ve learned it is critical to dig deeper to uncover who might be falling behind and why, because addressing these subtle differences ensures no student is left behind.
James Earl Kiawoin, Luminos Liberia Country Manager
Proving that Every Child Can Learn
In Liberia, one of our most challenging targets for the 2021/22 academic year was that every student could read a minimum of 40 correct words per minute (WPM) after 10 months.
At the start of the year, internal baseline data showed that children were entering the program reading just one WPM on average. Only three months later, reading abilities varied quite dramatically (this is not necessarily surprising, given our students come from very different backgrounds).
Seven months into the school year, we were entering the final stretch. With just three months left, our team made one last push to ensure all students had a real chance to succeed and could move closer towards the goal of 40 WPM. We doubled down our efforts to understand who was struggling and why.
What Impacts Student Learning?
First, we looked at the data: There was remarkable progress compared to day one, but roughly 50% of students were reading below our benchmark of 30 WPM for this point in the program. Within this group, a majority of students were with new, first-year teachers.
Second, our community partners visited the classrooms to identify what other challenges might exist that data alone could not reveal. For example, were these students struggling because they lived in areas where English, the language of instruction, is not widely spoken? Was student attendance a challenge? Were parents and caregivers supportive and engaged?
Overall, we needed to target different schools for different reasons, but the data helped Luminos and our community partners identify the classrooms with students falling behind and develop tailored strategies to support them and their teachers. This included a range of techniques:
Providing more frequent and tailored support for new teachers:
Our community partners in Liberia typically visit up to five classes a day. In order to better support new teachers, our partners began to spend more time in fewer classes, providing teachers with deeper, relevant, timely, and actionable feedback. One cross-cutting challenge they identified was related to phonics, breaking words down into sounds and combining letters to form words. This approach is not taught in Liberian government schools, and for most of our students, this was the first time they encountered phonics. For the same reasons, our newer teachers benefitted from additional training and support in this area.
Sharing and discussing data with teachers:
While data helps Luminos think about program design, training, and curriculum updates at a high level, teachers can use data daily to help them steer their approach in the classroom, understand which students are struggling, and continuously improve their craft. Our community partners worked to share and discuss student assessment data with teachers, ensuring teachers were equipped with practical strategies to adjust their teaching to help all students learn joyfully and effectively.
Providing additional one-to-one and small group support to students:
During regular lesson times, teachers provided additional one-to-one support to students who were performing lowest in the weekly assessments. Teachers also paired higher-performing students with those who are lower performing so that they can help to provide additional support during lessons. Additionally, teachers identified students who would benefit from small group instruction that provided targeted lessons on specific skills.
Regrouping students and teachers:
In communities with more than one classroom, we moved students to other classes based on their reading level, usually having an experienced teacher available to ensure they can catch up more effectively.
The Results
Looking back on the school year, there was no silver bullet — but there was a process, and that yielded significant learning improvements for our students. At the end of the school year, 67% of students were reading at or above 30 WPM—an increase of over 17% from month seven of the program—thanks to the efforts of our community partners, teachers, and yes – data.
One of the joys of working at Luminos is that data is centrally important to us. It helps us identify challenges and respond to the needs on the ground in real-time.
Luminos is constantly striving to find the right balance – not over-complicating what we ask community partners and teachers to do, but also having high expectations and aspirations for what we can and should be achieving for the benefit of our students.
As I close in on one year at Luminos, I have learned that a hands-on approach to teacher training and a strong focus on collecting real-time data is key. Taken together with our passion for helping every child to succeed, we can support children everywhere to unlock the light of learning and fulfill their potential.
Luminos is constantly striving to find the right balance – not over-complicating what we ask community partners and teachers to do, but also having high expectations and aspirations for what we can and should be achieving for the benefit of our students.
James Earl Kiawoin is the Country Manager for the Luminos Fund in Liberia where he manages day-to-day operations, overall program delivery, government and stakeholder engagement, and supports staff development. Previously, James worked as a Strategy Consultant at Dalberg Advisors in Rwanda where he completed projects on higher education financing and digital ecosystem development including e-government services.
A massive mango tree casts a shade over Siah’s school, offering some respite from the humid Liberian sun.
Every morning, Siah walks the short distance from her bright blue house to her 6th grade classroom eager to learn for the day.
“The Luminos program helped prepare me for the school I’m in now.”
Siah, a Luminos alumna
It was not always like this for Siah. Her parents were unable to afford the school fees to send Siah, the youngest of five children, to government school. Instead, Siah helped her mother sell traditional Liberian meals, like pepper meat soup, around her community.
Three years ago, at the age of 10, Siah finally started school for the first time in a Luminos classroom in Bomi County.
When Luminos began offering our free catch-up education program in Siah’s community, her parents jumped at the chance to send her to school. Siah remembers her time in the Luminos classroom fondly.
“It helped me learn how to pronounce words—how to read and write,” she says. One of her favorite memories was learning to use phonics to break down letter sounds in a word. Luminos’ program was instrumental in helping Siah step forward on the path of learning.
“The Luminos program helped prepare me for the school I’m in now,” Siah says. When Siah started Luminos’ program, she was unable to read the alphabet, do math, or identify letters. By the end of the one-year program, Siah was a top student in her class.
Siah’s parents were struck by her transformation. When Siah’s mother, Kumba, saw the progress her daughter was making with Luminos, she vowed to keep Siah in school. Siah transitioned into 3rd grade at her local government school when she completed the Luminos program. Today, Siah attends 6th grade and continues to help her mother sell hot meals in the afternoon.
“I also like to play kickball with my friends!” Siah adds with enthusiasm.
Using the skills she learned in Luminos’ program, Siah has become a fervent reader and loves stories. Her favorite subject is social studies.
“I like to hear the story of our country,” Siah says. Siah’s passion for stories and her country has grown into a dream of being a journalist. “If I become a journalist, I would help others in the community. If there was something happening in our country, I would announce it to the public.”
Siah and her mother, Kumba, outside their home. Kumba jokes that Siah’s love of talking will make her an excellent journalist.
Through the Luminos program, Siah received a second chance at education and a deeply instilled joy of learning.
“If I become a journalist, I would help others in the community. If there was something happening in our country, I would announce it to the public.”
Siah, a Luminos alumna
Siah standing outside her home, proudly wearing her favorite color: purple.
Read this story and others from our various country programs in our 2021 Annual Report!
To learn more about our Liberia program, click here.
In 2016, the Luminos Fund launched the Second Chance program in Liberia to help address the country’s urgent education needs – including one of the world’s highest recorded rates of out-of-school children. To date, Luminos has helped 12,650 Liberian children catch up on learning and reintegrate into local schools. 489 young people have been trained in the Second Chance pedagogy and model.
Previous external evaluation results show that in just 10 months, Second Chance students in Liberia are reading 39 correct words per minute (CWPM) on average, compared to just under 5 CWPM at the start of the program. [1] Approximately 90% of Luminos students transition to mainstream school at the end of the program.
During the 2020/21 school year, results show that the Second Chance program increased oral reading fluency by 28.7 CWPM, with girls progressing 4 CWPM more than boys. These results are remarkable on two accounts. First, the 2020/21 school year was a shorter, 7-month program due to the COVID-19 pandemic (in a typical school year, the Second Chance program runs for 10 months). Second, the 2020/21 school year marked the reopening of classes in Liberia for the Luminos Fund after COVID-19 school closures (mid-March through December 2020). Our latest report, “Second Chance Liberia Endline Evaluation Report,” summarizes results from the 2020/21 Second Chance endline evaluation conducted by Q&A Services. [2]
Evaluation Overview
The evaluation aimed to demonstrate the impact of the Second Chance Liberia program on student literacy and numeracy outcomes during the 28-week 2020/21 program. The literacy and numeracy levels of a random sample of students across all Second Chance classes were assessed in the first two weeks of the program (baseline) and again in the final week of the program (endline). 345 students (ngirls= 163, nboys 182) across 80 Second Chance classes were assessed at baseline and endline. The RTI/USAID-developed Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) tools adapted for Liberia were used at both baseline and endline to assess students on a variety of early grade reading and math skills. For more details on the evaluation and methods used, please see the full report summary.
Overall Results
Results show that the Second Chance program positively impacted student achievement in both reading and math, with statistically significant impact on reading.
Literacy
On reading, students showed improvement across every EGRA subtask, including improvement of 48 percentage points on both letter identification and oral reading fluency of Grade 2 level text, 41 percentage points on familiar words, and 28 percentage points on reading comprehension. In oral reading fluency, students read 31.5 correct words per minute (CWPM) at endline, compared to 2.8 CWPM at baseline. Results show that the Second Chance program increased oral reading fluency by 28.7 CWPM during the 7-month 2020/21 program. See Table 1 below for the full results.
Numeracy
On numeracy, students again showed improvement across every single EGMA subtask, including improvement of 35 percentage points in number identification, 32 percentage points in number discrimination, 27 percentage points on addition and 17 percentage points on subtraction. As noted, while Second Chance impacted student achievement on mathematics, improvement was less significant than literacy. This makes sense given that 5 hours of the Second Chance school day (approximately 70% of instructional time) is devoted to literacy and 2 hours each day (30% of instructional time) is devoted to numeracy. See Table 2 below for the full results.
Conclusion
Results from the Luminos Fund’s 2020/21 Liberia program show that the program positively impacted student reading and math outcomes across all EGRA and EGMA subtasks. Student improvement in reading was statistically significant. Results show that the average student improved 28.7 CWPM within the 7-month Second Chance program, with girls improving four CWPM more than boys on oral reading fluency. Outcomes were similar across gender, county, and implementing partner. These results are incredibly impressive given the shorter 7-month 2020/21 program, and the challenges of successfully delivering an education program during the COVID-19 pandemic. When compared with similar programs in Liberia and globally, results show that Second Chance is a highly efficient and effective way to help vulnerable children catch up on learning.
To read the full report summary, including additional background on our Liberia program and a more detailed overview of the evaluation and methods used, click here.
1. Simpson, A. “Luminos Fund Second Chance Program, Liberia, Endline Evaluation Report 2018-19,” Q&A Services, June 2019.
2. Simpson, A. “Second Chance Liberia Endline Evaluation 2020-21,” Q&A Services, October 2021.
The Luminos Fund is expanding to help more out-of-school children catch up than ever before. Our country leaders are spearheading this effort: a group of dynamic, knowledgeable, and dedicated individuals who live and breathe our mission to ensure all children experience joyful learning. In this new series, “Luminos Leaders,” we will share their stories with you, starting with Liberia Country Manager, James Earl Kiawoin.
Q: Tell us a bit about your background. Did you grow up in Liberia?
I was born in Liberia in the middle of the civil war. Then my family went to the Ivory Coast and Ghana where we were refugees for two years before coming back to Liberia. I started primary school in the Ivory Coast but continued the rest of my education in Liberia where I finished high school at age 14. I was too young to do anything, so I went to the African Leadership Academy (ALA) for another two years. ALA is a pan-African prep school meant to develop the next generation of African leaders. ALA was a real game-changer in terms of what my life could have been and what it became after that. It was the first time that I got access to real, proper education—global education that was preparing me with a skill set and a mindset dedicated to social change and social justice. With ALA, there was a mission around preparing students to go back to their homes and do actual work to advance their communities.
Growing up in Liberia, many of my friends’ parents couldn’t afford to send them to school. Or kids would go to school, and they weren’t interested or motivated and would stop going. As a child, I didn’t understand the gender dynamics, culture factors, or financial issues. I just thought, oh, they don’t want to go to school because school’s boring. Today, I’m able to step back and understand those dynamics: the fact that if the public school systems are not strong, parents will think that their kids are better off staying on the farm. In most of the communities Luminos serves in Liberia, there’s no real no role model effect. Kids don’t see people graduate from high school and so school doesn’t make sense to them because they haven’t seen anyone do it.
Q:What makes Liberia special? What do you love about the country?
When you trace the history of Liberia back to free slaves returning to a place they knew nothing about—there’s this sense of daring and entrepreneurship in the Liberian spirit. That’s one of the things that’s always brought me back to Liberia.
When I was growing up, before attending ALA, I had no idea that I could do anything meaningful for Liberia. It was just: you go to school, you try to survive the war, you just try to eat and live. When I went to ALA, that was the first time that I actually realized that there’s something we can do in this country. We can change the narrative for children who come after me. We can help build the national education system. We can help build systems across all sectors to do good for people!
“When you trace the history of Liberia back to free slaves returning to a place they knew nothing about—there’s this sense of daring and entrepreneurship in the Liberian spirit.”
James Earl Kiawoin
Q: The core of our mission at the Luminos Fund is education. Tell us more about your own education. Why education is important to you?
After completing the ALA program, I did my undergrad at Colorado College in Political Science. I went back to Liberia to work for two years on the Ebola crisis and then returned to the States for a master’s degree in Public Affairs with a focused on international development from Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. I’ve been really, really fortunate with all the places I’ve gone to school.
For me, education opens doors for people to cultivate their own potential and innate talent. For most families in Liberia, there’s no other pathway out of their current situation. The way you pull yourself out of poverty, for the most part, is to go to school and get a job to take care of your family. For the longest parts in Liberia’s history, people have not been able to go to school because of the war or their family didn’t have the resources. It’s really important that we are able to create access to high quality education so that people can do things for their families and in their own communities.
“For me, education opens doors for people to cultivate their own potential and innate talent.” – James Earl Kiawoin
Q: Why did you decide to join the Luminos Fund team?
It was a combination of a personal desire to help Liberia, and also knowing that I could do more at scale, even through a small organization. The Luminos Fund is so different from previous parts of my career that focused on strategy and were far removed from day-to-day implementation. At Luminos, I’m actually in the field once a week; talking to Abba [Luminos Liberia’s Program Manager], talking to parents, and talking to teachers. There was an appeal to being in direct communication with those who are benefitting from the program. It’s a very dynamic job. At Luminos, every day there’s something new from government engagement to people management and trying to ensure the motorbikes run!
Q: What’s your favorite part of your role?
I love being able to see the students in class and learning. The teachers are there, classrooms have the proper materials, and there’s all this chanting going on and active, play-based learning.
At the front of everybody’s mind is that we have to ensure that these children are reading and writing properly, and that they can transition to traditional schools. Whenever you enter Luminos classrooms that’s on the fullest display: everyone is so committed to helping these kids learn how to read and develop the desire to learn.
Q: What inspires you?
The will of individuals to craft big societal change is really inspiring. Whenever I come across those people who are willing to ask hard questions or to put it all on the line to solve hard problems, it’s really inspiring.
Q: What inspires you about the Luminos Fund?
This commitment to excellence. Watching Folley and Emmanuel [Luminos Libera Program Associates] in the field, seeing them coach the teachers, and do the running records, it’s very visible that everyone wants these kids to succeed. Everyone really buys into the vision that every child can learn, and our job is to ensure we teach them how to learn.
At Luminos, everyone’s actions reflect our mission. When we’re collecting receipts to ensure that we’re good stewards of our resources, it’s reflecting that mission because, if we can do more with this money, more children can learn. When we’re tweaking the curriculum based on feedback or driving consistent use of data to improve program outcomes, it’s all geared toward that simple vision that children should be reading; that they should be in school in order to cultivate their potential.
To learn more about Luminos’ work in Liberia, visit our Liberia page.
