Balancing coaching and collecting: Early learning from Senegal on instructional coaching for improved early grade reading

• In Event: Highlighted session: Coaching to improve early grade reading instruction: evidence on effectiveness and sustainability

Proposal

This paper presents recent applied and empirical research from Senegal’s national reading program Lecture Pour Tous (Reading For All), launched in 2017 by the Ministère de l’Education Nationale (MEN) and USAID to significantly improve early grade reading. In keeping with the international evidence base on the importance of instructional coaching, Senegal is now piloting a multifaceted model in half of the country. Learning from this pilot is being applied to improve the model and ultimately inform Senegal policy on coaching; it also serves as a useful case study for the field of comparative education and those seeking scalable, sustainable models to improve teacher practice and particularly to increase literacy rates for sustainable development. The findings reiterate the importance of systematic engagement from all levels of the education system to increase model implementation, even when coaching is school-based and coaches show relatively high levels of technical competency.

Lecture Pour Tous is testing a model using school directors as in-school instructional coaches for teachers to receive sessions at least twice a month, a frequency that would not be possible with the current number of inspectors. To provide support and quality oversight, inspectors are to visit each school at least once a quarter, or more often when needed and to coach directors who themselves are teachers. In addition, teachers participate in regular peer-learning and professional development sessions. The program is also using audiovisual clips, SMS push messages, and a free phone/texting network linking teachers, directors and inspectors for additional support.
To allow the director to focus on engaged coaching rather than on data collection, the inspectors collect the detailed teacher observation and simplified student assessment data used for program monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) while the coach uses a simplified tool. The inspector also uses a tool to monitor and help coach the coach. Directors and teachers will also be surveyed by text messaging for rapid feedback. This is complemented by a detailed teacher knowledge, attitudes and practice study to measure changes at a deeper level – including time on task.

In the very first months of coaching implementation and before every aspect of the model was launched, MEL data showed that 77.5% of directors demonstrated good techniques – although these findings may be mitigated by selection bias given that the directors observed were those easiest for the inspectors to reach. During this same early period, only 53 of the 99 inspectors trained visited schools, and only 26% of teachers had been coached.

Senegal is now expanding the coaching program and piloting the digitization of data collection tools. At the same time, Lecture Pour Tous is ramping up support from department-level education officers and project staff to help better organize inspector visits and follow up to increase fidelity of implementation. New data will show how much progress has been made in coaching frequency and quality at large scale, and the ministry will be applying systematic learning around this experience to review job descriptions for inspectors and directors and other policy elements to sustain instructional coaching nationwide.

Author

• Jennifer Swift-Morgan, Chemonics International