Stakeholders Applaud CFI’s TaRL Program for Improving Literacy

In a bid to restore reading culture among learners in lower classes in Lango Sub region, Community Focus International (CFI) in partnership with Grassroots Nest for Innovations and Change (GRiC) is enhancing the reading ability of learners in the three Primary Schools of Anyomolyec, Abunga and Otwal through TaRL model.

Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) model that is reaching 611 learners from the three schools focuses on strengthening foundational literacy skills among learners in Primary Three to Five by enhancing their ability to read, form words, and construct sentences in both local languages and English.

This was piloted in Anyomolyec Primary School in 2024, then after it was introduced in other schools, a process that started with a baseline assessment to identify the reading levels of learners. These reading levels are Beginner, Letter, Word, Para and Story. The assessments revealed that most learners were still at beginner, letter, and word levels, highlighting significant gaps in foundational literacy

After the assessments, the learners are then grouped and attached to individual teachers who started conducting targeted instructions using TaRL methodologies.

At TaRL Africa, the program has been shown to deliver two to three times (2x–3x) improvement in foundational reading skills.

Meanwhile in Uganda, reading still remains a challenge especially among the learners in lower Primary Schools as evidenced in the 2016 baseline report issued by the Ministry of Education and Sports that literacy levels at Primary three (3) are still below the national average of 38.2% (NAPE, 2023).

Parents whose children are in the targeted classes and primary schools praised the program for significantly improving the reading abilities saying their children couldn’t read well in the past years, while the TaRL teachers said the initiative is a projection that they could achieve better results among learners.

During a TaRL session at Abunga Primary School, 10-year-old Flavia Acam, a Primary Three pupil, successfully demonstrated her learning by forming a word from vowel and consonant sounds. She constructed the word “dadu” (da-du=dadu) in the Lango language, meaning “to open an object into two.”

The achievement boosted her confidence and earned applause from her classmates.

According to Scovia Amony, a TaRL teacher at Abunga Primary School, such progress is becoming increasingly common among learners.

“We grouped her at the beginner and letter level, but she performed exceptionally well. She is now progressing to word and paragraph levels. The program is helping learners improve rapidly, especially those at the beginner level,” Amony noted.

She added that the program is strengthening learners’ reading and comprehension skills, giving teachers hope for improved performance in the 2026 Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE).

On the side of parents, Bob Oyonge, a parent at Abunga Primary School, described the program as impactful and worth expanding to more schools saying his daughter, a Primary Five pupil, has developed a growing interest in reading and often practices aloud at home, something that has brought him great satisfaction.

“This program is very effective, I have seen clear improvement in my child who now reads more confidently at home, which was not the case before,” he said.

There is increasing hope that this focused model might greatly enhance results, including greater performance on national exams, as more pupils show improvement. Increasing the number of schools participating in this program could help close the literacy gap and guarantee that every kid has the chance to read, learn, and succeed.

Meanwhile Jimmy Mwoci, the Education Project Officer at Community Focus International (CFI) explained that foundational literacy skills are always done in Primary One and Two saying most of the learners in these targeted schools had missed.

Mwoci said that interventions like TaRL is very key because it helps in impacting the numeracy and literacy skills of the learners.

“Most of the learners who were in Primary Three, Four and Five, were not meeting the reading benchmark, they had a lot of gaps in numeracy and foundational literacy, if such intervention were not brought for them that means they would continue with such challenges because the foundational literacy skills they missed are usually done in Primary One and Two,” Mwoci explained