The Curriculum Monitoring & Monitoring of Learning Achievement (CM&MLA) Unit under the Education Planning Research and Development (EPR&D) department of the Federal Ministry of Education is responsible for conducting research and field monitoring of learners in basic education and review the curriculum in accordance to the results. One of its mandates is to conduct the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) to monitor the reading and learning achievement and ascertain progress of adaptation and compliance with national policy on education for the use of native languages as language of instruction in early childhhood education.
A pilot EGRA was first conducted in 2019 in three states (Kano, Enugu, and Ogun) and in three most spoken languages – Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba respectively. The EGRA instrument used was sectioned into five components to better assess the abilities of learners in understanding native language. These components were; Letter Sound Identification, Non-Word Reading, Oral Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension and Listening Comprehension Building on the success of the pilot, in 2020 a subsequent EGRA was conducted in all geopolitical zones of the country including the FCT. The prokect also seeks to determine the impact of learning environment, the teaching experience and the teacher’s knowledge of national policy on education. Questionnaires were developed to gather data for further analysis.
In each state visited, 9 schools were selected for the EGRA and a total of 284 schools were visited. 15 learners were selected at random in Primary 2 and Primary 3 respectibely. The learning achievement was measured using the EGRA protocol unders a series of simple tests aimed at:-
A. Phonemic Awareness – he ability to identify sounds in words, to separate words into sounds and to manipulate those sounds.
B. Alphabetic Principle – The ability to understand and apply the knowledge of how letters are linked to sounds to form letter-sound correspondences and spelling patterns.
C. Fluency- the ability to read orally with speed, accuracy and proper expression. The EGRA measures oral reading fluency (ORF) becuase it has been shown to predict later skills in reading and comprehension.
D. Comprehnsion- The ability to actively engage with, and derive meaning from the texts that are read.
