Yemen

Scope and Sequence Curriculum Product Brief

The Early Grade Reading Barometer is an interactive dashboard that lets you: - SEE an overview of how well students are reading, the percentage of struggling readers, and how comprehension is associated with reading fluency. - VIEW information about student performance on EGRA subtasks. See how outcomes vary by key student and school characteristics. - EXPLORE how different EGRA subtasks are related to one another. View graphic displays of these relationships. - CHOOSE a target oral reading fluency benchmark, and see information on how many students are meeting the targeted benchmark now and how the percentage of students meeting the benchmark value could change over time. - SEE how countries compare with each other with respect to student outcomes on EGRA assessments and progress towards meeting UN SDG Goal 4. - REVIEW the impact of interventions aimed at improving the fundamental reading skills of students. - COMPARE how the distributions for selected EGRA subtasks have changed or remained the same over time.

MENA countries are facing significant challenges in providing access to quality education for children in the early grades. However, it is important to note that the situation in the MENA region is not so different from that in other regions of the Global South: quality and learning are not being achieved. In MENA countries, achievement in math is not only associated with the effectiveness of teaching and learning, but also with providing an equitable system of education for all children. This paper presents the state of mathematics education in the MENA region and suggests means to improve it according to the pertinent cultural and social context.

This presentation, delivered at the MENA region All Children Reading workshop in Rabat, provides an overview of results to date in the region and introduces the early grade reading barometer.

EdData II, which began in late 2004, provides survey expertise to help national and local governments as well as the donor community to assess their education status. Project advisors collaborate with USAID Missions and Bureaus, other donors, and host-country stakeholders to find innovative and cost-effective ways to gather and analyze education data. One task order under EdData II, called "Learning Outcomes Research and Assessment Related Projects (2009-2013) supported the conduct of early grade basic skills in reading and math. Experiences with the various assessments were documented in an EdData II publication: "Learning Outcomes Research and Assessment-Related Project: Final Report (October 2013). The final "Learning Outcomes" report covered initial country reactions to the assessments and their findings. The purpose of this review was to collect data on how results had been disseminated and used long after the initial release of the report.

Assessments of student learning in the primary grades, such as the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), offer an opportunity to determine whether students are developing the fundamental skills upon which all other literacy skills build, and, if not, where efforts might be best directed. A closer evaluation of students’ mastery of foundational reading skills would help reveal to Yemen’s MOE why learning outcomes have not improved as much as would be desired. To that end, USAID and the Yemen MOE tasked RTI International with administering EGRA to a stratified random sample of 735 students in grades 2 and 3. Students were selected from 40 schools across the three governorates of Amran, Lahj, and Sana’a.