Early Financial Literacy

Arlo’s Adventures

A measure of financial literacy for children aged 4-6 years

“Arlo’s Adventures” is a comic book focused on Arlo, a young alien, whose spaceship broke down and crashed on Earth.

In this comic book, children follow Arlo’s adventures as he earns and saves money to buy parts to fix his spaceship and return to his planet.

Throughout the story, children answer questions that check their understanding of money, including spending, saving, budgeting, borrowing, lending, and where money comes from.

Click here to find out more on the OSF
Throughout the story, children are asked a series of
questions aimed at assessing their knowledge and understanding of financial concepts.
The concepts include having knowledge of money, spending, saving and keeping track of money, planning and budgeting, borrowing and lending, and where money comes from.
The comic strips are used as prompts for one-to-one discussions with children to assess their understanding of financial concepts and their ability to describe their own experiences with money.

Arlo’s Adventures has been tested to see if it measures young children’s financial literacy. The report shows that the tool works well on a large scale and produced reliable results.

The analysis found that the tool measures five main areas:

  • Transaction methods

    Knowledge and experience about methods of payment and purchasing.

  • Getting money and making money decisions

    A measure of children’s own experience of getting money and making money decisions.

  • Saving money

    Experience and knowledge about saving money and where is a safe place to keep money.

  • Where money comes from

    Knowledge and experience of child and family income.

  • Spending money

    Knowledge about how to make good decisions about whether and how to spend money.

Get ready to join Arlo on his adventures!

Download this free resource below.

Download Arlo’s Adventures
Comic Book
AND
Download Arlo’s Adventures User Guide

For reference and further information, please see:

Measuring financial literacy of children aged 4 to 6 years: design and small-scale test | Money and Pensions Service

Measuring financial literacy in children: Money and Pension Service

How to cite this resource

For citations, please use:

Xenidou-Dervou, I., & Jay, T. (2025). Arlo’s Adventures: A measure of financial literacy for children aged 4–6 years. Open Science Framework. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/6FBQD

“Arlo’s Adventures” was funded by the Money and Pension Service: https://maps.org.uk/en