Remedial Education Results and modalities: Lessons learned from Honduras

• In Event: Remedial Education: Promising Platforms & Technologies

Proposal

Reading is a fundamental skill in primary education, but the learning outcomes in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have been unsatisfactory despite significant efforts. This paper focuses on the Honduran education system and presents the results and lessons learned from a remedial intervention implemented by EDC as part of the USAID Honduras Reading Activity (HRA).
In 2019, Honduras participated in the fourth regional comparative study conducted by LLECE , which revealed that only 47.2% of third-grade students and 16.2% of sixth-grade students in Honduras reached the minimum level of reading performance. National assessments conducted at the end of the 2021 academic year, after two years of school closures, showed a decline in the percentages of students performing satisfactorily compared to the 2019 national data.
The USAID/HRA project, implemented by EDC since 2017, aims to improve learning outcomes in Spanish for grades 1-6. The project has implemented a learning leveling program in reading using the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) approach. The project developed Leveling Learning Guides in Spanish (GANE), which consist of micro-lessons that can be facilitated by volunteers or family members in some contexts and by teachers in others. The projects dual implementation modalities thus present an interesting case study in the pros of cons of using a teacher vs volunteer led approach.
The project relied on the simple evaluation approach with Measurement of Instructional Alignment (MIA) to determine students' reading levels and identify the necessary interventions. The initial systematic interventions using the MIA test and the GANE guides were conducted within the recreational learning camps of the Honduran education system in December 2021 and January 2022. The intervention involved training volunteers to administer the diagnostic test, determine the type of intervention needed for each student, and guide the study sessions.
The MIA test measures a student’s ability to read syllables, words, paragraphs, and short stories. The paper will present the results of the program in terms of students level of reading comprehension and on the number of students unable to read letters, syllables and words. The paper will also present findings and lessons learnt on using community volunteers versus implementing remediation through regular classroom teachers, which has significant implications for scaling up in the Honduran education system. Finally, the paper will highlight results of a qualitative study which is investigating the reasons for teachers' adherence to the proposed strategy. The findings and lessons learnt have significant potential to contribute to the knowledge base around remedial education and help inform policy-makers and practitioners in designing remedial programs.

Author

• Monica Sahonero, Education Development Center Edc