Improving targeted student support: Lessons learned from assessment-informed instruction and “catch-up” studies across countries

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Children in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are not learning to read before they reach secondary school. This issue has persisted in recent years, despite increases in school enrollment, as well as an additional focus on increasing the availability and quality of resources for early grade classrooms and schools (Glewwe & Kremer, 2005). Even in countries with more comprehensive education reforms aimed at improving foundational literacy and numeracy, learning targets and curricular standards are often set much too high (well beyond the learning levels of students), making it difficult for students to acquire the basic skills they need to be successful in school (Pritchett & Beatty, 2012). This situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the learning losses suffered as a result of school closures (Angrist et al, 2021).

As school systems around the globe continue to re-open, it is essential for governments, donors and implementing partners to consider innovative and effective ways to provide equitable learning opportunities to all students. Recent evidence has shown that one solution may be the use of targeted teaching by student learning level (e.g. assessment-informed instruction) (Banerjee et al, 2016; Duflo et al., 2021). Providing teachers with the ability to identify the skills that individual students need to learn, grouping them by similar needs, and providing instruction that specifically teaches these skills can serve as a cost-effective way to improve learning outcomes and provide “catch-up” opportunities for many students across countries and learning contexts (World Bank, 2020).

While there is promising evidence on the effectiveness of assessment-informed instruction approaches, questions remain about how such approaches can work as a complement to existing, structured comprehensive reading programs, as well as how best to design and implement high-quality, reliable teacher-led classroom-based assessments. This panel is designed to address these gaps.

Accordingly, this panel will focus on recent research and evidence on assessment-informed instruction and remediation approaches implemented in a range of LMICs. The chair will introduce the session with a brief overview of assessment-informed instruction in LMICs, with a focus on common obstacles and limitations to be addressed by panelists. This will be followed by three presentations.

The first presentation focuses on new evidence for strategies to support assessment-informed instruction in early grade literacy. This presentation will highlight the results from two, interrelated studies. The first consists of a cross-country study that examines concurrent and predictive validity of teacher-administered assessment data, as well as implementation fidelity and barriers to teacher uptake and use of data across five countries in Africa and Asia. The second study covered in this presentation focuses on the piloting of a group administered, written reading assessment in early primary classrooms in Tanzania. The findings from these two studies have informed the redesign of assessment-informed instruction activities in more than ten countries.

The second presentation provides an overview of a newly developed rapid classroom-based assessment for teachers in the Philippines. The Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment (CRLA) was initially designed to provide teachers with a means of measuring whether or not students were ‘on track’ upon returning to school after COVID-related closures. Due to its initial success (and a request from the Department of Education), the CRLA was expanded to include modules for assessing student learning at multiple timepoints throughout the year. Each ‘version’ of the assessment is tied directly to the curriculum and incorporates passages from existing teacher materials, to ensure consistency and ease of administration. This presentation will provide insight into the development and use of the CRLA, including promising practices for administering the assessment both in-person and virtually.

The third and final presentation provides initial findings from an innovative new study, designed to evaluate the impact of an assessment-informed remediation intervention for struggling learners in Ghana (under the Ghana Learning Transition to English Plus program). The remediation program is designed to provide remedial sessions as a supplement to the structured, core reading instruction program that is taught to all students. This serves as a unique adaptation of Pratham’s Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) program, and the presentation will focus on the impact of the remediation effort (above and beyond the comprehensive reading program), as well as the successes and challenges of teacher implementation.

Finally, our discussant will guide a discussion on the principles and complexities of assessment-informed instruction and remediation efforts, with a particular focus on teacher implementation and use of data to target instructional change, as well as potential opportunities and lessons learned.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Jonathan Stern, RTI International

Individual Presentations

• The Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment (CRLA) – Evidence from the development and implementation a teacher-led, rapid formative assessment in the Philippines - Mitchell Rakusin, RTI International; Jonathan Stern, RTI International

• Supporting assessment informed instruction: New evidence on the implementation, utilization and validity of teacher-administered classroom-based assessments - Christine Beggs, Room to Read

• Impact of a remediation intervention in the context of a larger reading intervention for early grades in Ghana - Nina Menezes Cunha, FHI 360; Marcia Davidson, Georgia State University

Discussant

• Asyia Kazmi, Bill