BackHome
Refresh: OffView Personal Schedule
Session Submission Summary

Lesson from 10 years of the Early Grade Reading Studies series: learning to read in South Africa

Wed, February 22, 8:00 to 9:30am EST (8:00 to 9:30am EST), Grand Hyatt Washington, Floor: Independence Level (5B), Independence I

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

This panel discusses the lessons from rigorous scientific testing of reading interventions in South Africa. This empirical work provides evidence from the global south on the sustained and systematic use of evidence and theory to test and inform language policy. The studies referred to are a set of nested impact evaluations known as the Early Grade Reading Studies (EGRS) conducted in South Africa over the last 10 years. The EGRS studies targeted both Home Language literacy in Setswana, one of the African languages spoken in South Africa in the first study (EGRS I) and English as a First Additional Language in the second study.

In 2012 the first proposals for an Early Grade Reading Study in South Africa were drafted within the Department of Basic Education (DBE). There were three main reasons for this proposal:
1.mounting evidence that most South African children were not learning to read with sufficient comprehension by grade 5;
2.research showed positive early learning outcomes were strongly predictive of reaching grade 12 and performing well in the matric examination; and
3.a dearth of evidence about how to improve reading outcomes at scale.

Ten years later there have been several iterations of the Early Grade Reading Study , led by the Department of Basic Education, but with many partners. The work has contributed to a growing consensus around the importance of improving South Africa's reading outcomes and has generated an evidence base around what sorts of interventions impact on reading outcomes and how the change process works. It is important to note that although this project has now implemented support programmes in about 450 schools, this was done to evaluate their impact in order to inform wider-scale implementation by national and provincial education departments.

To date 5 rounds of data collection have taken place in each of the two RCTS, EGRS I and II respectively. This has provided the first longitudinal literacy study in South Africa with the latest data collection taking place at the end of primary school, in grade 7 in EGRS I in 2021 and at the end of Grade 4 in EGRS II in 2020. These newly released findings will be presented as part of the panel.

Some of the main findings from the research are that systemic and educationally meaningful improvement in literacy levels requires an invest in teachers. This is because one-on-one coaching for teachers has proved to be the most effective reading intervention. Secondly, in a context of contestation about which language to support a home language intervention in the Foundation Phase is recommended, as it will have a positive impact on home language and English as First Additional language (EFAL).

The sustainability impact evaluation of EGRS I has provided a rare opportunity to track the progress of learners (longitudinally) over nearly seven years and to examine the long-term impacts of an early grade reading intervention, three to four years after the intervention has been completed. The most consistent impacts were for learners who received the maximum dosage of the EGRS I intervention in grades 1 to 3 (i.e. those who progressed, as intended, through the three years of the intervention from 2015 to 2018).

EGRS II has confirmed the potential of the coaching implementation model to shift instructional practice and deliver learning gains, and has also led to the incorporation of electronic tablets into current programmes being implemented. However, it has unfortunately not yielded a cost-effective alternative to on-site coaching.

The third paper in this panel focuses on theory building, reflecting on how these RCTs have benefitted from theory and how they contribute to theory. This merging of quantitative causal data with theory enriches the overall understanding of what and how to replicate the key mechanisms across different contexts.

Evidence of the effectiveness of on-site coaching has been building over the past couple of years and this study further contributes to this evidence base. This evidence, along with the lesson on sustained change, iterative learning and long-term impact all speak into the CIES theme of one of the goals of education being a more equitable world. As we learn more about how to sustain systematic and system-wide improvement in education and share these lessons from the global south we contribute to learning about similar education systems and the theory, mechanism and expected impact in such contexts.

Sub Unit

Chair

Individual Presentations