2010 Early Grade Reading Assessment: Malawi national baseline report

Using the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), USAID Funded MTPDS program worked with MoEST to assess students’ reading skills in Malawi across a variety of essential areas of literacy. EGRA does not assess a specific curriculum, such as the National Primary Curriculum (NPC) of Malawi, but instead measures the rate at which students are developing critical skills that they must acquire in order to learn to read successfully. The skills assessed are found through research to be predictive of later reading ability, and that can be improved through effective teaching. The assessment was developed specifically for the Chichewa language (see Annexes A and B). It included a variety of subtests, including letter naming fluency, syllable fluency, phonemic awareness, word reading fluency, unfamiliar word naming fluency, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension. The sample consisted of approximately 1,000 students. The purposes of the assessment were to investigate the level of reading skills of children in Malawi in order to obtain a national level perspective of early reading development, to provide baseline data for USAIDfunded MTPDS Program activities, and identify areas of weakness for future decisionmaking and curricular and pedagogical interventions. The report provides results and implications, and makes some recommendations for the improvement of early grade reading in Malawi for the consideration of the MoEST and relevant stakeholders.