GHEI’s Early Childhood Literacy (ECL) program offers six extra classroom hours per week of individualized instruction to poorly performing primary school students.  ECL classes are especially important at this critical age where low preforming students are often not seen as worthy investments and begin to be neglected by their parents and teachers.

 

With a focus on building literacy skills, the classes use a culturally-adapted phonics-based curriculum and incorporate purposeful play, songs, and poems, as well as ample time for guided and individual reading and writing. The students thrive in a small classroom setting with ample books and school supplies. They are able to actively participate in class while building their creativity and critical thinking skills. The ECL program has been commended by local school teachers who have written to GHEI expressing thanks for marked growth in their students who also participate in the ECL program.

 

Impact

By the end of one year of the GHEI program, our students could identify almost twice as many letters as their randomly selected peers in the same grade.

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By the end of two years of the GHEI program, students could identify 17 words per minute on average, while their randomly selected peers in the same grade could not identify any.

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Of all of the children from ECL, including those who have graduated up to 5 years ago, 97% are in the top 75% of their class and 59% are in the top half of their class.  This is a tremendous achievement considering they started as the worst performing, and were at high risk for dropping out.  None of our ECL students have dropped out of school.

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