The author reviewed Philippine and international journals and textbooks related to language, education, and reading; publications written or commissioned by organizations known for work in international education such as UNESCO, SIL, RTI International, and Save the Children; attended conferences and reviewed conference proceedings and abstract books; used Philippine census data from the National Statistics Office, and reviewed research studies produced by students, particularly of the University of the Philippines College of Education in Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines. The result is a report that may be one of the most comprehensive literature reviews covering language and literacy in the Philippines. While the purpose was to gather information about language characteristics and existing research on reading acquisition in Philippine local languages to inform the development and implementation of early grade reading assessments, the relevance of information collected in this paper goes far beyond just reading assessment. By wedding linguistic information (e.g. language characteristics, acquisition, use, and changes), sociopolitical context (historical background, law, and education, language, and cultural rights), and the reality of Philippine classrooms, this report could also inform curriculum, teaching methods, and policy development, particularly with regards to mother tongue-based multilingual education.

This report summarizes the findings from a baseline assessment that was conducted in February and March, 2014 to determine the current status of reading achievement in the “Cluster 2” schools in which the Program will be working, as well as achievement in control1 schools that will be used as a basis for comparison in assessing the effectiveness of the interventions.

This report summarizes the findings from a baseline assessment that was conducted in February and March, 2015 to determine the current status of reading achievement in the “Cluster 3” schools in which the Program is currently working, as well as achievement in control1 schools that will be used as a basis for comparison in assessing the effectiveness of the interventions going forward.

This baseline report discusses the results from an Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) where data were collected from 300 randomly selected government primary schools in 15 districts in Uganda (11 program districts and 4 control districts). EGRA data were collected in five languages—Ateso, Leblango, Luganda, Runyankore/Rukiga, and Englishall learners were assessed in English and in one of the four local languages. For this baseline, 7,844 P1 and 2,163 P3 learners were assessed. In addition to this, 69 P1 reading lessons were observed and 289 teachers and 280 head teachers were interviewed about the support that they received or were able to provide in the area of reading.

This report shares the findings from a study of early grade reading skills and classroom practices in Mali which was conducted in three regions of Mali (Koulikoro, Sikasso and Ségou) in May 2015 at the end of the school year. Children in Grade 2 in classique and curriculum schools were assessed in letter-sound identification, individual word and short story reading, and reading comprehension. Children in medersas were assessed in basic oral French vocabulary knowledge. One class was selected for classroom observation in each of the sampled schools in order to help better understand prevailing teaching practice in the sampled schools.

This report addresses the main research question: In Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 schools, were the pupils who participated in the United States Agency for International Development’s Liberia Teacher Training Program (LTTP) Phase II (LTTP II) reading and mathematics interventions now achieving better results?

The first component of this EdData II research report (RTI Task 30) was a desk study of literacy instruction in primary schools in Honduras. The researchers reviewed curriculum materials and investigated the instructional practices and use of materials by teachers in primary schools. The second component was an October 2014 field study that involved collecting quantitative and qualitative data from 43 schools in grades 2, 3, 5, and 6, on effective teacher practices, school environment, and infrastructure related to early grade reading instruction.

This final report summarizes main findings and lessons learned from the piloting of lot quality assurance sampling (LQAS) in the education sector in Tanzania. It also suggests next steps for applying LQAS more broadly for education program monitoring.

This report describes the results of an early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) conducted in Senegal in two languages: French and Wolof. The research was supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and included teacher interviews and classroom observations that captured the language of instruction being used in the classroom in order to explain the context of the findings.

This report summarizes the results from a three-month pilot research activity in Kaolack, Senegal designed to test whether communications techniques can bring about changes in family members’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to their children learning to read. At the end of three months, family members in Kaolack demonstrated strong recall of the main messages of the campaign and were much more likely than control families to espouse beliefs supportive of their children learning to read.