The impacts of a culturally relevant book flood on early literacy in Papua New Guinea

Hilary A. Smith*, Kym M. Simoncini, Rebecca McDonald, Stephen Haslett

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    1 Citation (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Determining the most effective means to improve literacy rates in low resource educational environments remains an important challenge. We explored literacy impacts of a book flood of culturally relevant reading books in Papua New Guinea (PNG) through teacher training and distributing 25,240 copies of 126 culturally relevant books to 150 schools. The project also included 150 control schools. We sampled Elementary 1 and 2 level cohorts in 79 schools at baseline and 79 Elementary 2 level schools at follow up - over 1,100 children at each stage - and found statistically significantly greater improvements in the intervention group's reading comprehension. Our analysis indicates that the flood of culturally relevant books was the principal reason.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number102726
    JournalInternational Journal of Educational Development
    Volume98
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2023

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'The impacts of a culturally relevant book flood on early literacy in Papua New Guinea'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this