Reports

This report is one of three undertaken in the context of a situation analysis of reading in Morocco. The present report analyzes in detail teachers’ attitudes and practices. As a starting point, it addresses the following questions: What are the perceptions that have the most influence on the teaching of reading in the early grades? How do these perceptions impact the professional development of teachers? How do teachers respond to questions about the language of teaching? Are they receptive to the learning of reading in local languages? This third research component studies the perceptions of language use in general and the behavior of teachers specifically. It analyses teachers’ perceptions of the teaching of reading in Arabic and how these perceptions influence their practice.

This report is one of three undertaken in the context of a situation analysis of reading in Morocco. Across these three studies, USAID and the MENFP aimed to study in more detail a few of the factors that favor or harm acquisition of reading in the early grades, namely: • A review of curriculum and learning materials (reading textbooks, teachers’ guides) • This study on initial teacher training and reading • An analysis of the perceptions and attitudes of teachers and how they influence practice The starting point of this research on initial teacher training was the three following research questions: 1. Does the official teacher training curriculum (theoretical and practical) take into consideration recent evidence on how children learn to read in Arabic? 2. What methods for teaching reading do future teachers learn? How are they taught during initial teacher training? 3. Are teachers sufficiently prepared (in quality and duration) to teach reading in Arabic?

With the aim of providing developing member countries (DMCs) with better guidance to use information and communication technology (ICT) effectively in education, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded a 21-month regional technical assistance (RETA) in Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia, and Samoa. The RETA researched approaches to using ICT in education in ways that succeed in improving teaching and learning and also are sustainable given the region’s development challenges. The study equipped two subject trainers, a training coordinator, and a cluster of 10 schools with “smartphones”2 (with video, speakerphone, and three-way calling capabilities), for use by 20 Bangla and math teachers in 10 schools of the Barisal region in southern Bangladesh (for a map indicating the study area, see Appendix 1 of this report). The existing training curriculum was revised from a 2-week, face-to-face workshop to a 6-week distance-mode training based on printed materials and practical application of training content with peers.

With the aim of providing developing member countries (DMCs) with better guidance for using information and communication technology (ICT) effectively in education, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded a 21-month Regional Technical Assistance (RETA) in Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia, and Samoa. The RETA researched approaches to using ICT in education that succeed in improving teaching and learning and also are sustainable given the region’s development challenges. The study in Nepal focused on the use of digital video recording and laptops as tools in remote teacher training settings. Although VHS video has been around for many years, and has been common in teacher training in some countries since the 1970s, the advent of digital recording offers many new possibilities for using video in the classroom, as well as in developing-country contexts, because of the compact and easily distributed nature of this technology. This makes video a particularly suitable tool for remote areas with poor communications infrastructure, such as the mountainous regions of Nepal.

A year after the first baseline EGRA was completed in four language regions, a follow-up survey was administered to samples of 30 to 40 teachers and 375 to 400 students per grade in the same regions (randomly sampled). The sampled teachers were asked about their preparation for, level of comfort with, and understanding of MTB-MLE, and their instructional practice during a reading lesson was observed. Timed observation instruments provided an opportunity to analyze time on task, and the relationship to reading achievement. Students completed an assessment of their letter sound knowledge, decoding skills, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension in their mother tongue, and their listening comprehension and ability to read familiar words in Filipino, as well as their oral understanding of common English vocabulary words and phrases.

Following the study completed in 2013, measuring English, Filipino and Ilokano reading skills, this 2014 EGRA study is serves as a baseline for monitoring the government's Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) program by conducting EGRA assessments in four mother-tongue languages—Cebuano (Sinugbuanong Binisaya), Hiligaynon, Ilokano and Maguindanaoan. The survey also included classroom observations of teaching practice and teacher interviews to gather contextual information about the extent of MTB-MLE implementation.

The present report describes the results of two reading assessments that were carried out to measure performance of a representative national sample of children reading English and Filipino at the end of grade 3 (Objective 1, above) and a regional sample of children reading Ilokano in grade 1 (Objective 2, above). The first included a national sample of 2,463 students, selected in a stratified, random framework to be representative of six geographic areas: North Luzon, Metro Manila, South Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). The second was a regional sample of 494 children in 50 schools selected randomly in Region 1 from all schools who reported having begun implementation of Ilokano instruction in school year 2012–2013 or 2011–2012.

In 2012, Urban Planet Media and Entertainment Corporation/Urban Planet (UP) was awarded a grant through All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development. The grant awarded to UP was used to develop, pilot test, and evaluate an early literacy product in Uganda that targets parents through their mobile phones and encourages them to engage their early primary- school aged children in literacy skills-building activities outside of school hours. The product delivered to caregivers multimedia (text plus audio, or SMS+audio) content in Luganda on a daily basis over period of 91 days. During this period, all of the letters of the Luganda alphabet were introduced as well as 10 key vocabulary words all related to a short story. The product was evaluated by RTI International using RCT methodology. This is the Endline report describing the findings using a product evaluation framework.

In 2012, Urban Planet Media and Entertainment Corporation/Urban Planet (UP) was awarded a grant through All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development. The grant awarded to UP was used to develop, pilot test, and evaluate an early literacy product in Uganda that targets parents through their mobile phones and encourages them to engage their early primary- school aged children in literacy skills-building activities outside of school hours. The product, which is delivered in the Luganda language, delivers multimedia (text plus audio, or SMS+audio) content on a daily basis over period of 91 days, during which all of the letters of the Luganda alphabet are introduced as well as 10 key vocabulary words all related to a short story. The product was evaluated by RTI International using RCT methodology. This is the baseline report describing the methodology and participant characteristics after pre-testing.

This study examines why some districts performed better than others in implementing their Teacher Deployment Plans. The TDP engaged selected districts to analyze data to quantify and qualify their teacher deployment issue, to identify the means by which they could address their teacher deployment issue—merging schools, creating multi-grade schools, transferring teachers, recruiting teachers, and/or reassigning teachers—and to help them develop a detailed TDP plan that, when implemented, would address the teacher deployment issue. This study examines why some districts performed better than others in implementing their TDP plans.