Digital solutions to engage communities as a pathway for early literacy

• In Event: Trends in the ICT Field

Proposal

The need for access to high-quality learning has never been so critical––53 percent of children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a simple story by the end of primary school. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened educational inequalities worldwide and forced us to reimagine affordable alternative pathways to education for children who cannot access schools–whether as a result of this current global crisis, or due to other crises and educational access issues. By harnessing the reach and accessibility of mobile technology the presentation will highlight work to strengthen the home learning environment in our shared effort to illuminate the power of ideas at CIES 2022.
Through the exploration of two case examples, in Peru and Kenya, the presentation will share how the organization has adapted their early reading model from school-based learning to school-to-home based learning to empower and engage communities, parents, and caregivers in supporting a community learning environment for children under 12.
To date, the organization has reached over 18 million readers across 62 countries, distributed 62 million books and an astonishing 124 million hours of reading have taken place via their platforms. By designing for low network infrastructure environments, adapting learning tools for low literate communities, and leveraging social media and other accessible messaging platforms to drive reading behavior, the organization’s approach will challenge and inspire others to innovate for these environments and encourage partnership for greater impact and scale.
In Kenya, the presentation will showcase findings from a project working in early childhood development centers and community networks, to support early learning, parental engagement, and social and emotional learning. The case example will demonstrate how the intervention applied an accessible app, globally diverse books, continuous digital and non-digital engagement, and data insights to help drive a robust mobile learning experience.

In Peru, the organization will showcase a primary-school based example where they tested a digital reading program in five schools in 2020 that introduced a school to home digital reading environment based on a curated book collection and related pedagogy on tablets in schools and mobile phones in the home. With the goal of improving reading outcomes starting with increasing reading time on task, the project was forced to pivot as a result of Covid-19 to focus on support solely at the home level and engaging both parents and teachers around reading in support of student distance learning.

This case study will explore the adapted pilot program in five public schools in Barranca Province, Peru running from August 2020 to January 2021, and display early findings from the scaled reading program now active in 55 schools across Peru. Working closely in partnership, the project is now reaching over 10,000 P1-P4 students in 6 different regions across the country, with endorsement from Regional governments. The case study will examine early results from reading behavior and qualitative data through phone surveys from a sample of 600 elementary students in 2nd and 3rd grade and their parents and 20 teachers from the pilot, and over 1,117 interviews with a representative sample of school directors, teachers, and caregivers for the baseline of the scaled intervention in 55 schools . The intervention is providing pedagogical support including materials and training for teachers and parents in order to support and encourage behavior change around use of mobile devices to support reading and learning at the home level.

As we seek to better understand and adapt to our changing world, we look forward to sharing our experiences and findings with the wider CIES community so we can use our collective idealism to improve our global education systems.

Author

• Rachel Heavner, Worldreader