Large scale reading reform in Uganda: What do early grade reading assessment data tell us?

• In Event: Evidence-based decision making in education
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Impact evaluations & program plans: deciphering the data for decision making

Proposal

Large Scale Reading Reform in Uganda: What Are Early Grade Reading Assessment Results telling us?

Presenter: Rehemah Nabacwa, USAID/Uganda School Health and Reading Program, RTI

SDG2 calls for all girls and boys to “complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes” by 2030. Though the world has come closer to reaching universal primary enrollment, we have not hit the target – and in many settings, the quality of the learning is low. Learning to read is a fundamental skill that learners need to acquire in primary school, and reading levels are low throughout Africa. This evaluation looks at a large scale reading program in Uganda funded by USAID using a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) to look at reading outcomes in program and control schools.

The School Health and Reading Program (SHRP) is a 7 year program (2012-2019), implemented by RTI to support the Ministry of Education and Sports to improve reading among primary 1-4 learners. Currently, the program supports reading interventions in over 4000 schools in 43 districts nation-wide – other programs taken the SHRP materials and methods to an additional 8000 schools – covering 80% of government primary schools.
EGRA data were collected at the beginning of P1 and at the end each school year – depending on when the language group started in the program -- the first 4 languages started in 2013 -- data have been collected up to end of Primary 4, 5 or 6.
Data show program gains in local language correct words read per minute (cwpm) above those found in control schools. Luganda speakers, for example, in Program schools were reading 13 more words in the local language than those in control schools at the end of P5. Though there was little difference in local language cwpm at the end of P1, differences started to emerge at the end of P2 and by the end of P3, significant positive differences were found in 10 of the 12 languages.
Ugandan primary school pupils are taught predominantly in the local language until Primary 3 when they transition to English (though the transition should be gradual through the grades). The pattern with English gains is similar to that of the Local Language gains. By the end of P3, 8 of the 12 languages had registered significant gains in English. By P4, 5 of the 8 languages had gains significantly higher than control and by P5, 3 of the 4 languages reaching that level had significantly higher gains than control.
Major findings of the research that will be discussed:
• When children learn to read (decode) in their local language, they are able to transfer this skill to decoding English.
• Although SHRP has been able to move more learners to higher reading levels and they are on their way to becoming fluent readers, there are still too many learners not acquiring foundation skills.
• Reading gains in large scale interventions working through government structures take time due to systemic and contextual challenges.

Authors

• Rachel Jordan, RTI International

• Tracy Brunette, RTI International

• Rehemah Nabacwa, RTI International