Mimi and friends Literacy Program

A world where young readers find pleasure in reading and have access to reading resources.

To present reading as a pleasure and not a chore. We make reading fun. We address impediments to functional reading platforms in schools and facilitate knowledge sharing and rectification of existing gaps by key education stakeholders.

Obj1: To promote play-based reading approaches.

Obj2: To  improve learner-initiated reading.

Obj3: To  improve access to reading resources.

Obj4: To increase functional literacy platforms within schools.

Our primary target is children 2-13yrs old. We conduct reading sessions in which we utilize play-based approaches so as to change mindsets about reading and promote learner-initiated reading. Through mentored support classes within schools, we provide and mentor teacher-support to struggling readers so as to facilitate peer to peer support and help-seeking behavior from young readers. This is vital because reading is often presented as a chore to young readers, hence, becoming a stressful activity. Much emphasis is put on passing exams by schools, hence, little enjoyment given to reading for pleasure and leisure. More so, little concern is given to improving children's access to reading resources, thus, further limiting learner-initiated reading. By conducting reading in a play-based manner, we demystify phonic approach to reading and also promote phonemic awareness and self-blending  which catapult into easy reading. We also encourage storybook writing by children so as to encourage transition to comprehension and writing as well as enjoyment, access to resources and eliminating discriminative attitude towards struggling learners through participation in edit-my-story exercises which are also a celebration of literacy journeys of individual children.

We also target teachers and school management through teacher refresher workshops and 8week mentorship in schools. This passes on knowledge and skills in learner-centered methods and also bridges communication gaps between staff and school management. This is vital because  there is little knowledge about play-based learning and limited implementation of this in classrooms. Also due to overcrowded classrooms and low pay, teachers are prone to negative attitudes towards reading and hardly show any commitment to helping struggling readers. Some structural impediments such as teachers' inaccess to library facilities impede efforts at consistent reading. Mediating a conducive environment for teachers' positive attitudes, their access to libraries and addressing other emerging issues by school management, facilitates sustainable literacy interventions and positive outcomes.

Education officials are also targeted through engagement, partnerships and authorization to conduct this program in schools. Through reflective meetings, insight is given into existing and emerging issues surrounding foundational reading as well as solutions being put in place to rectify these challenges. This also enables trickle down of information and linkage to resources that would otherwise have remained unutilized by schools.

She is the founder and vision bearer of the program. She facilitates teambuilding, resilience and strategic actions to ensure that there is growth in tandem with the emerging needs identified internally and externally.

She works together with a team to ensure that solutions are got to emerging problems, as well as ensuring that sustainable actions are pursued.

She explores partnerships and funding opportunities for the program. Together with the consultant she identifies and pursues worthwhile activities and viable partnerships that enable program effectiveness and efficiency for  sustainable literacy outcomes.

She offers technical guidance and holistic support to the team members and program mentees in the different schools and communities in which we operate.

The team is well positioned because we are positive minded and eager to improve our knowledge and skills on effective play-based children-friendly literacy interventions. As a team we have the passion to reach out to the needy schools of interest. More so, this is an area of interest to us having been promoting child-friendly approaches to schools, communities and relevant institutions in Uganda. 

Whereas we have relied upon past and present experiences, we are also aware of the emerging gaps and keen on improving our solutions and delivery for program effectiveness and future partnerships. The urgency to coherently document and enable evidence-based interventions, has never been felt as urgently as now when the literacy need is greater than before and potential funders demand coherent evidence. We stand to benefit immensely from this knowledge and skills impartation from your research team.

Given that we are keen on productive partnerships, we are eager to collaborate further for reflective and insight from our passionate mentor and champion reader under whose municipality jurisdiction, as municipal education officer, we have mentored numerous schools and enabled functional literacy platforms under Nansana Municipality.

Our solution is the Mimi and friends Reading Mats. These impact on learner self-blending and improved reading among learners 3-7years.

The solution seeks to solve low reading levels among Ugandan children. It promotes play-based approaches that enable learner enjoyment, self-blending and consistent exposure to reading resources. The above is often impeded by inactive literacy platforms in schools, that have for long challenged foundational literacy. This is coupled with poor teacher attitudes exacerbated by low pay and overcrowded classes, as well as, little access to reading resources and despair at the cyclical nature of this process. Fixation on passing exams also robs young learners of the enjoyment that comes with consistent exploration of phonic blends, word families and an eventual enabling of learner-initiated reading.

Whereas many Ugandan teachers had challenges with the phonics  approach to reading because they had no knowledge and skills in the early 2000s, alot of progress has been made since then with the relevant ministry and most schools investing heavily in instructional materials and workshops. 

Currently, from our observation from the schools and teachers engaged, most ECD teachers have basic knowledge to enable positive  literacy outcomes.  However, consistency and skills in age-appropriate teaching is still lacking. We have also observed that whereas many young learners can fairly identify sounds, they have difficulty self-blending and most are not phoenemically aware. More so storybook reading activities are hardly done due to "fixed timetables", lack of EGRs  or the actual storybook reading is too sporadic to make an impact. Interestingly, habitual reading is not cultivated at home and is still a challenge despite calls for parental involvement and support of reading as a pleasure. This situation worsens in public schools where resources are scarse, classrooms overcrowded and teachets overwhelmed.

Whereas most identified gaps are bridged during teacher refresher workshops and mentorship under the mimi and friends literacy program; we believe that the Mimi and friends Reading Mats will eliminate atleast five hurdles through promoting play-based learning which will enable learner enjoyment, improve learner-initiated reading and peer to peer support. It will also ease teacher workload, thus, giving them more time to observe reading progress of learners and effectively address individual learner difficulties as they emerge instead of waiting for termly assessments that are often blanketing in nature and offer little help to struggling readers.

Our solution, the Mimi and friends Reading Mats are designed to appeal to children 3-7years because they  promote play-based learning that enable learner enjoyment, learner initiated reading, learner self-blending, peer to peer support and improved literacy outcomes. Inconsistency, poor attitudes and teacher-centered approaches rob young readers of the enjoyment that comes with consistent exploration of phonic blends, word families and an eventual enabling environment for reading. Teacher-centered approaches also rob reader confidence as we have observed in many schools because whereas many young learners can fairly identify sounds, they have difficulty self-blending and most are not phoenemically aware. Most are hesitant and appear to seek "approval" from their teachers before blending or forming words of choice. In the event that a confirmation or approval is not given, all children onserved during these word formation games have not been able to progress to word formation despite being able to identify the syllables and singular sounds.  On the contrary, during the piloting of the reading mats in a few schools, we observed learner enjoyment, increased exploration and great peer to peer support.  However we also noticed that active teacher involvement and proximity to the young learner using the reading mat, tended to have regressive impact on the activity because the learners would often conform ro the "approval-seeking" format greatly encouraged in the classrooms devoid of play-based learning approaches.

We believe that the consistent use of the Mimi and friends Reading Mats will promoting play-based learning which will enable learner enjoyment, improve learner-initiated reading and peer to peer support. It will also ease teacher workload, thus, giving them more time to observe reading progress of learners and effectively address individual learner difficulties as they emerge instead of waiting for termly assessments that are often blanketing in nature and offer little help to struggling readers.

Mimi and friends literacy program has conducted two Case study Observational studies. They were both active participant observation. 

The first was conducted in 2016 within two ECD centers in urban and rural areas. The urban ECDC was a public school located within Kampala, Uganda; whereas the rural ECDC was located within Kiryadongo refugee camp in Uganda. The aim of the study was to explore the response of young learners to "Laminated Flip EGRs".

The study findings showed high learner-initiated interaction and peer to peer support. It also showed ease in usability and less need for teacher instruction. The study revealed the need for environment-appropriate reading materials that would enable consistent and freedom in use by the young learners. It revealed that laminated EGRs had greater chances in withstanding wear and tear from the age-group and increased positive attitude and less hesitation by caregivers in supporting learner access to EGRs if wear and tear was not an urgent concern.

The second case study observational study was conducted in 2024 within three ECDCs located within the urban area of Kampala, Uganda. The study utilized active participant observation in which the researcher was part of blending games using a prototype of the Mimi and friends Reading Mats.

The study findings revealed learner eagerness to participate in the activity, high learner-initiated self-blending, enjoyment and presence of peer to peer support. 

It was also observed that learner confidence in forming exploring word families and forming new words decreased with increased teacher proximity to the learners at play and involvement of the teachers appeared to onset "approval-seeking" behavior in the young learners. This was observed in the behavior of the learners with most prior confident learners who had been self-blending easily; stalling in the activity  and turning to the teachers in proximity before progressing in word formation.

The first study revealed positive response of young learners to EGRs suited to their environment  (muddy semi-permanent classroom housing) for learners in refugee settings. This was also suitable for urban public school settings that had overcrowded classrooms. Both settings imdicated learner-initiated reading and peer to peer support. Findings also showed that laminated EGRs decreased teacher hesitation to support consistent reading due to decreased fears of wear and tear of the EGRs.

The above informed and enabled the creation of the Mimi and friends Reading Mats in that we understood that they had to be light, portable  and enabled play-based learning l. We are still in the process of identifying suitable durable material that can also be non-slip since the Mimi and friends Reading Mats are utilized in a hopscotch play format.

It also guided us on designing the Mimi and friends Reading Mats to enable more learner-initiation and less teacher instruction. We observed that Ugandan teaching is still largely teacher-centered and this impedes learner confidence, initiation and exploration. This subsequently deters learner enjoyment and makes sustainable pleasurable reading, a challenge. 

The Mimi and friends Reading Mats are therefore designed to be child-friendly, easy to ise and explore further word groupings. They are also intended to be versatile, light and portable so as to be carried anywhere and break the monotony of classroom- bound lessons by optimal utilization of the beautiful outside environment found in most ECDCs in Uganda.

The studies also informed us about the absence of regular teacher observation of play-based learning. Identification of unmet literacy milestones is often through  routine written classwork and stressful isolated formats when a young learner is called out to the front of the classroom to give an answer, read or write the "correct"answer to the questions. The ensuing shaming drama from tje classmates when the learner is unsuccessful plus the threatening environment all negate positive learning moments for young learners. They also attach negativity ro reading. The mimi reading mats are designed in such a way that through play (which is fun and non-threatening) young learners can explore and put to practice what has be taught before while the teacher ia able to identify struggling learners to whom specific guidance over particular thematic reading areas, is needed.

Furthermore, given the cost implications to which many schools may be hesitant to cover once it exceeds "affordability"; coupled with rampant poor attitudes learner reading materials, we are keen on having two separate designs with one in a pocket format where various flash cards can be inserted depending on the sound of the day and another version thats unpocketed for schools that find it affordable.

Where as we are passionate and keen on finding solutions to emerging problems ; so much that we have churned out additions to the program ever so often to meet the needs of stakeholders, it is ever so vital to strengthen the evidence base of our solution now rather than later. 

It is noteworthy to point out that even though there were reading challenges in Uganda, the Covid19 shutdown worsened the statistics since learning and attempts at home-based learning plus online teaching did not yield much fruit because of inadequate structures. Since school reopening we have observed many students being made to skip classes due to the pressure of their parents to keep the age-class stride and schools are being pressured to comply under the threats of parents taking their children to other competing schools. Therefore, the pressure felt by educators have led to unprecedented fixation on "results" no matter the avenue taken. As teachers are frustrated by the ineffectiveness of rote memorization, the young learners are also being rushed through work with  huge pressures.

This Mimi and friends reading mats are one such creation out of a moment of "we must do something about this madness". With the gaps that we have observed within the classroom and the reluctance by teachers to take on "extra workload" the time is so ripe to be able to justify why an integration of wonderful child-friendly play-based activities are much more effective than cram work. Furthermore whereas we can argue our case verbally based on the observations made in the classroom, there is need for knowledge and skills impartation of our team so that we can justify these actions from an evidence-based perspective-coherently put forth and worth standing on for replication.

We are also believe that implementation within the available 50 public schools which are riddled with challenges such as class over crowdedness, lack of reading resources, overwhelmed teachers, give us an opportunity to demonstrate that reading milestones can be achieved when a child-centered play-based approaches are put in place. This will improve learner-initiated reading and less teacher-centered teaching styles, thus, lessened workload for teachers which will increase observation time and abilities to monitor individual learner progress better, thus, immediate help instead of ignoring struggling readers.

The need is great and the time has never been better than now to gain knowledge and skills that enable our evidence-based practice.

Qn1: Are learners able to initiate self-blending during the activity?

Qn2: Are learners motivated to be resilient in the face of difficult reading situations towards task completion?

Qn3: Does the environment enable peer support and reading confidence?

Literature reviews on past reading behaviors of Ugandan children 3-7years and ensuing impacts on reading outcomes; as well as formative research, will help inform on whether learners are able to initiate self-blending during the activity with the Mimi and friends reading mats. We will be able to ascertain through usability, whether there is learner enjoyment as well as through interviews and observed behavior evaluate the impact of learner enjoyment on sustainable reading interventions.

Because there have been observed tendencies to regress to approval-seeking behavior, formative research and summative evaluations will help ascertain whether learners are motivated to be resilient in the face of difficult reading situations towards task completion while using the interactive play-based Mimi reading mats.

Through methods such as observation, one will be able to explore whether the environment while using the reading mats, enables peer support and reading confidence.

With a scheduled school visit, under your guidance, the program team will be able to conduct an integration of reading sessions through which we will pass on knowledge and skills to the teachers and young learners on phonemic awareness, how to self blend and its relationship to  eventual ease in reading. As had been set as a prerequisite for our access, if we are able to access the mobile reading van upon successful fundraising, these reading sessions will be used to present reading as a pleasure and not a chore, provide a positive setting for ensuing reading mats use. This is vital because there needs to be a mindset change about reading, instruction and child-centered play-based activities. 

With the knowledge and skills you impart to us, we will be keen on utilizing the same and professionally conducting and documenting the same. We will be keen to share insight and give feedback on so as to understand the rationale for some activities and how best existing and future tailor-made solutions would benefit from this insight and feedback.

The desired long term outcomes include;

Firstly, improved skills and reading confidence among young readers. It is hoped that there will be mindset change by all and less fixation on teacher-centered instruction as an avenue to get rapid desired literacy outcomes. Its hoped that with insight into the integration, inflows and outflows from one literacy area to another, and ensuing impacts on literacy outcomes; will promote creation of coherent and integrated activities that are effective or enable learner application of theoretical concepts. 

Secondly, it is also hoped that there will be increased key stakeholder support for functional literacy platforms in and out of schools as well as a better coherent streamlined efforts in ensuring that integrated play-based activities are focused on as a vehicle for learner-centered rather teacher-centered teaching. Evidence-based backed interventions will give better insight into emerging situations and also offer incentive for quick redress and context-appropriate solutions rather than copy and paste solutions are less effective in Uganda.