Local Early Grade Reading Assessment adaptation and piloting: Lessons learned

• In Event: Measuring reading and language skills of learners with disabilities: Formative and summative assessment case studies from East Africa

Proposal

The Local Early Grade Reading Assessment (LEGRA) is an innovative assessment approach that provides teachers with tools to evaluate Kinyarwanda reading competency in primary school students across Rwanda. Results are used to improve reading performance and inform local-level education planning. The LEGRA system was developed as a collaboration between the Government of Rwanda and a former donor-funded project, and it is now being implemented in all Rwandan schools with the support of a current donor-supported project and the National Examination and School Inspection Authority (NESA).

While LEGRA has been formally institutionalized as an integral component of comprehensive learning assessment and is to be used to assess every student at the lower primary level in Rwanda, close monitoring by the project and NESA found that many learners with disabilities were not being evaluated due to the limited accessibility of LEGRA tools. To address this issue, the project worked with local experts to adapt LEGRA tools for children with special needs.

This process started in a five-day workshop with the purpose of supporting NESA to address the challenges faced by students with special education needs in taking LEGRA as part of Comprehensive Assessment by adapting and testing existing items and instructions to suit their needs. Key activities conducted during the workshop included describing LEGRA subtasks’ different terms, adapting subtasks and instructions, testing drafted items, and refining reading comprehension tasks for learners with hearing impairments. The adapted LEGRA was first tested in two schools; however, the team that tested the LEGRA for deaf students noticed the challenges in assessing them, considering the unique structure of sign language and limitations in signing unfamiliar words. The team sat to redesign the subtasks, based on the findings and teachers’ recommendations from the first test; the final adapted LEGRA were retested.

As a result of practical skills shared through the groundwork laid by the project’s practical contribution, blind students were able to participate in LARS this year (2023) following best practices adopted by the Government of Rwanda. The project continued working with its partners to adapt and pilot test EGRA tools for blind children and deaf or hard of hearing children.

Authors

• Protogene Ndahayo, FHI 360

• Alphonse Ntirenganya, FHI 360

• Jean Claude Sabato, FHI 360