The Mozambique Vamos Ler! (Let’s Read!) program, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, was designed to develop bilingual education pedagogical tools and activities, improve national early grade literacy policies and delivery and monitoring systems, enhance school leadership and increase parental and community engagement in early grade literacy. The five-year, evidence-based project built the government’s ability to create policies, tools and approaches to early grade literacy that are flexible, results oriented and affordable.
Let’s Read! assisted the government in delivering a quality bilingual education program for first, second and third grade students in the provinces of Nampula and Zambezia, where a baseline assessment revealed more than 90 percent of second graders could not read two words in Portuguese. Based on classroom analysis, data and best practices, the project worked alongside government counterparts to develop instructional tools and learning materials in the local languages with oral language development and transition to Portuguese reading and writing in the fourth grade.
Taking a holistic “whole child, whole teacher, whole school, whole system” approach, Let’s Read! gathered critical data to inform policies and improve student performance, with the aim of institutionalizing and sustaining a bilingual early grade literacy package that the government could use to optimize learning, equip teachers, involve communities and transform schools into responsive centers of learning, care and support.
Creative implemented the program in partnership with international organizations with expertise in strengthening education approaches and policies. These groups included the World Education, Inc., American Institutes for Research, Overseas Strategic Consulting and Blue Tree Group.
