Impacts of Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Approach on Literacy and Numeracy Performance of Pupils in Adamawa State

Аннотация

The dwindling rate of numeracy and literacy skills amongst teachers and pupils is alarming across all the Borno Adamawa Yobe (BAY) states in Nigeria. This is an emergency situation that requires urgent intervention, since the same product goes to the secondary schools and finally high institutions in Nigeria. This paper aims to ascertain the numeracy skills of pupils in grade 4, 5 and 6 in Lokuwa II Primary School Mubi North Adamawa state. A baseline assessment was performed on the pupils followed by midline. The “Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL)” Program which trains teachers regarding the urgency of learning basic literacy and numeracy for children, and how to teach these basic literacy and numeracy using the TaRL method was introduced after the baseline. The activity was carried out by assessing and grouping the pupils based on their competency levels: Beginner, One digit, Two Digit, Subtraction and Division. These levels were further grouped into beginner/one digit, two digits and operations (i.e. subtraction and division). A whole class activities were conducted to the pupils, then group wise activities and finally individuals activities in each classroom session. Each activity was carried based on the group of the pupils. The results revealed that 2% of the beginners in the group left for one digit; 16% of pupils in one digit progressed to two digits as their new competency level; 1% of learners in the two digit category progressed to subtraction levels. The pupils in the subtraction levels started increasing considering transitions and progressions from other levels. More learners are now in subtraction level, the level has increased by 18%. Lastly the division level that had zero (0) pupil at the baseline is now having 2 learners (pupils) and they are all girls. It can be concluded that the TaRL approach impacted positively on the pupils’ numeracy skills. It was recommended that the TaRL approach be scaled up across all schools in Adamawa state also, similar research be conducted to capture the literary aspect of learning on the pupils.