Raising readers: Kenyan schools use of technology to improve parent and carers’ engagement in literacy learning

• In Event: Improving education through technology-driven parental engagement

Proposal

Improving education to drive a more equitable world will require innovation and adaptation not just within traditional education institutions, but within the households and communities that sustain them. There is significant evidence in the education literature on the impact of supporting parents/carers to adopt evidence-based reading practices at home. However, this literature is yet to be contextualized, applied and evaluated in the context of blended learning systems and the use of digital books. Further, more rigorous evidence is needed to better understand what technology-based mechanisms of support to parents/ carers are most effective to contribute to improvements in children’s literacy skills. This needs to be considered in the context of which ones are the most equitable, cost-effective and have the greatest potential for scale.
This Panel Session presentation will showcase the Raising Readers research project in Kenya that seeks to fill some of these gaps in understanding. The intervention is testing a set of five parental engagement strategies surrounding use of the Booksmart reading application by 1300 Kenyan Grade 3 learners and their parents and carers. This research will evidence the most effective mechanisms through which to engage with parents, including training, nudging, incentives, data feedback loops, and exploring the potential impact of supporting them to adopt evidence-based reading practices through community events. Using design-based research (DBR), the intervention is being trialed across a set of 14 Kenyan primary schools situated in two locations: one on the outskirts of and another within an urban slum settlement within Nairobi.
The research & implementation team will present findings from the first phase of DBR research and respond to three sub research questions posed by the research:
RQ1: How do different intervention modalities impact caregiver-child engagement in a reading application?
RQ2: What is the cost effectiveness of each of these modalities for improving caregiver-child engagement?
RQ3: How do the different modalities impact caregiver-child engagement and reading outcomes across gender and socioeconomic backgrounds?
The research is being assessed through in-depth key informant interviews, observations of application usage, and perception studies. Data is being captured from 14 schools in the first stage of the DBR being presented. Within each school, FGDs are being conducted with parents (15), students (10), teachers (2-5) and school leaders (1) per school. In addition to the data described above, we will be collecting in-app data to track usage of the Worldreader application itself.
Results presented from this research will lead to greater understanding of the impact these approaches have on parent and carers’ engagement, as well as their cost effectiveness. The most promising modalities will be further scaled up through a clustered multi-armed randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving learners across 240 schools with a view to arriving at statistically significant findings on how these impact i) carer-child engagement and ii) reading outcomes across gender and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Authors

• Amina Khan, UNESCO-ODI-EDTech Hub (Consultant)

• Wanjiku Gathoni, Worldreader