Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Synthesis of findings and lessons learned about early grade literacy programming

Wed, March 28, 1:15 to 2:45pm, Hilton Reforma, Floor: 2nd Floor, Don Diego 3

Proposal

In the 2011-2015 USAID Education Strategy, the Agency asserted its commitment to education quality by setting the goal to improve reading skills for 100 million children in primary grades. This review synthesized the findings and lessons learned from 23 performance evaluations and impact evaluations funded by USAID and published between 2013 and 2016 and which met minimum evaluation quality criteria for inclusion in the synthesis. The final pool of evaluations included 21 projects that were deemed as relevant to Goal 1 by the USAID Office of Education.
The first part of the synthesis addressed three broad questions, specifically the program modalities, the strength of the body of evidence based on the Building Evidence in Education (BE2) guidance note, and main findings in terms of reading outcomes in early grades. The second part of the synthesis considered in-depth questions. Topics of interest were identified in collaboration with USAID’s Office of Education, namely learning outcomes, classroom instruction, teacher training, community engagement, and policy and systems.
This presentation will discuss the following results:
• For learning outcomes, the review found that reading interventions across the projects had positive effects on student scores. Often, however, the practical effects were often small, and the countries with the lowest baseline scores generally had the most difficulty showing improvements. Some of the projects did not measure student learning.
• For classroom instruction, the review was inconclusive about the most effective instructional method for improving reading skills. The evaluations listed a variety of practices, including scripted lessons and active learning, but it was difficult to determine what methods were working better than others. A few of the projects were able to increase time on task for reading and there were some reductions in teacher absenteeism. Materials were distributed on a widespread basis by most projects, though sometimes not in a timely manner. Many materials were produced in local or national languages; again, any gains associated with those materials were difficult to discern.
• For teacher training, the review found that in-service programs were the most popular and appeared to be the most successful. Pre-service training was often not linked with in-service training and was frequently isolated from the schools. When linkages between different types of teacher training were made, they sometimes led to significant improvements in reading scores. Mentoring and coaching models were not used on many projects, but the evaluations on those interventions showed some promise. The same was true for instructional guides, though much appeared to depend on whether they were well-implemented through continued training. A combination of interventions that were implemented with high fidelity seemed to have the best effects.
• For community engagement, the review found that there were many different models, and it was difficult to determine the success of the various approaches due to a lack of data. PTAs and SMCs had some success in providing additional support for reading interventions and monitoring activities at the school level. Extracurricular activities were attempted in a few of the projects but the evaluations of these interventions were more descriptive than analytical. Several evaluations discussed sharing information on student academic performance with parents, but the evaluations provided little information about how the information was used and whether there were any effects on student learning.
• For systems and policy, the review found that improvements in monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for Ministries was often mentioned in evaluation reports but implementation and sustainability of these systems was lacking. Similarly, some projects had interventions related to improved policy analysis involving data, though the uses of the data were generally ineffective, with one or two exceptions. Most evaluations reported on capacity building, especially with Ministry officials, only that actually implementing capacity building activities and sustaining interventions was usually less than successful.

Author