Adapting the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) for Students Who are Deaf in the Philippines

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

The purpose of this formal group panel session is to share and discuss the experience in the Philippines of adapting the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) for students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing. This was conducted in two phases. First, under the USAID-funded Gabay project the traditional EGRA was adapted and piloted for students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing. The resulting instrument was then used to conduct a baseline assessment in March 2020. Subsequently, in 2022 USAID tasked the All Children Reading Asia (ACR-Asia) project to develop a prototype of the assessment which could be administered remotely to students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing when it is not possible to send trained assessors to physically conduct the assessment in person. This panel will discuss the challenges, successes, and lessons learned through the process and provide recommendations on how other countries or projects could build upon the experience in the Philippines.
In the Philippines in 2020, and previously, in Morocco, Cambodia and Kenya, USAID supported the adaptation of an Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) specifically for students who are deaf and hard-of hearing. These have improved the understanding of and capability in inclusive education programming. In the Philippines, these included under the USAID-funded Gabay project (implemented by Resources for the Blind) the development and pilot implementation of the Filipino Sign Language (“FSL”) Curriculum and the training and mentoring of teachers in FSL. The overall goal of the Gabay project (2019-2023) is to increase access to quality education of children with visual and hearing disabilities. This is done through improving the detection, instruction, and support for children who are blind, deaf, or deaf-blind in the Philippines. One of the key activities of Gabay was the development of an EGRA for children who are deaf in the Philippines and the project conducted a baseline assessment in March 2020.
In 2022, the USAID-Philippines Mission tasked the ACR-Asia project (2016-2023; implemented by RTI International) to develop a prototype EGRA instrument that can be conducted remotely for students who are dear and hard-of-hearing. The school closures and travel restrictions imposed under the COVID-19 pandemic created major challenges in reaching all students, including students with disabilities. In addition, the context of the Philippines which experiences frequent adverse weather and geological situations – like typhoons, flooding, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes – coupled with a geography of thousands of islands and hard to reach areas, makes it difficult to conduct on-site and in-person activities in general. Therefore, a remotely administered assessment would help to address these challenges in reaching students, especially those with disabilities, for assessment and support.
This panel will address the following:
• Addressing the needs of the Philippines for assessing and reaching students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Considerations in adapting the traditional EGRA for students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing
• The process of adapting and piloting an EGRA for students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Prototyping a remote version of the adapted instrument, including the technological and procedural challenges to address
• Lessons learned and recommendations for similar adaptations
There will be three presentations and one discussant on the panel. The first will present on the challenges of increasing access to quality education for children with disabilities in the Philippines and the importance of adapting and conducting assessments to identify students needs and measure progress. This will include a discussion about the specific considerations that need to be taken when adapting a reading assessment for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. The second presentation will be on the technical aspects of identifying which subtasks and assessment protocols should be included in a reading assessment for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and share the experience of developing, piloting, and adapting the EGRA instrument for both in-person and remote implementation. The third presentation will be on the challenges of incorporating the adapted EGRA into a digital platform on the Tangerine application and the specific adaptations that were required to make it possible to conduct the assessment remotely without a trained assessor on site. A representative from USAID-Philippines will be the discussant to provide the background and context of the Philippines and why an adapted EGRA was so greatly needed. He will also raise key questions, insights, and recommendations to consider based on the experience in the Philippines and invite audience participation.
This panel presentation will align with CIES 2023’s Sub-Theme I: Social Justice and Inclusion and specifically address questions related to the gaps and challenges to equity and inclusion in contemporary education settings based on the Philippines experience.

Sub Unit

• Inclusive Education SIG

Chair

• Candace Debnam, School-to-School International

Individual Presentations

• Developing and piloting adapted EGRAs both for in-person and remote administration - Melyssa Sibal, School-to-School International

• Incorporating an adapted EGRA for students who are deaf onto a digital platform: challenges and lessons learned - Stephen Backman, RTI International; Carmen Strigel, RTI International

• The need for and challenges of adapting EGRA for students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing - Stephen Backman, RTI International

Discussant

• Henry Grageda, US Agency for International Development