10 Grade Two student supplemental reading books

RTI’s multi-country study examines a range of instructional support packages that include a variety of designs for coaching and communities of practice across all of RTI’s existing programs in order to determine what modes of coaching support are most effective. This includes coaches at both the school level and external to the school, as well as government officers compared with project hired coaches. This research is able to compare the relative effectiveness of coaching approaches with educational support provided by communities of practice meetings held at the school or the school cluster level. These findings have provided existing and future programs with best practices for how to more effectively implement coaching support structures at scale.This presentation was delivered by RTI at CIES (April 2020) as part of a panel focused on how literacy improvement efforts work at scale, and what types of coaching designs and behaviors impact teacher pedagogy more effectively than others.

This qualitative case study describes the experiences of young refugee children and their families accessing early childhood development (ECD) services in Jordan in late 2019. The study team collected data through key informant interviews with representatives of the Jordanian government, national non-governmental organizations, humanitarian agencies and service providers. Focus group discussions were held with refugee families living in the host community in Amman, as well as families in Za'atari and Azraq refugee camps. The study team supplemented key informant interviews and focus group with policy document review. Analysis is presented along the lines of policy and practice, with a focus on the respective roles of the government and international agencies in delivering ECD services to refugee families.

This study measured students’ reading ability and gathered basic demographic information from children and teachers. Some standard context information was also gathered from children about their exposure to reading in the home. Thus, the data allow us to describe one outcome of the current schools sampled—children’s reading ability—but they do not provide any empirical measurement of the inputs that contribute to this outcome. To explain the current state of reading performance as measured by this study, we must rely on other contextual data from our concurrent Language Usage Study and general knowledge of mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) implementation, as documented by policy and other studies carried out by other researchers. In the absence of direct measurement of “implementation fidelity” to a particular reading instruction program or materials, we must also rely on global evidence of how reading skills develop in alphabetic languages. To put it simply, children can learn to read, but only if they are taught to read. Teachers can only teach reading if they have been prepared to do so through training and are equipped with appropriate materials. Teachers and students must be present and making productive use of class time. The purpose of using EGRA as a system diagnostic is primarily to establish a baseline against which future progress can be measured and to identify priority areas for instructional improvement and teacher training. Cite this report: Betts, K., Punjabi, M., Pouezevara, S. & Cummiskey, C. (2019). 2019 Regional Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA): Bahasa Sug, Chavacano, Magindanawn, and Mëranaw. Prepared for USAID under the All Children Reading-Philippines Project, AID-OAA-TO- 16-00017. Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI.

The objective of this study was to provide insight into the relationships between the teachers’ and students’ language usage, the MTB-MLE policy implementation, and student reading outcomes, especially in areas with linguistically heterogeneous populations. It sought to examine how language usage in the classroom conforms to or diverges from the MTB-MLE policy after six years of implementation, which factors are associated with higher policy implementation, and how language usage by teachers and students relates to student learning outcomes.

This presentation summarizes the findings from Occasion 2 of the Uganda/Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity longitudinal study of the impact of the Journeys intervention that aims to reduce SRGBV, strengthen student's SEL, and improve school climate. The presentation focuses on qualitative findings. According to these findings, both teacher and pupil social and emotional competencies are strengthened in schools participating in Journeys. Teachers interact with their peers more often than in the past and their relationships with their pupils are more welcoming and positive. The prevalence of corporal punishment has declined. Pupils are free to open up to their teachers, report issues they encounter in school and express themselves more in the classroom. Pupil relationships have improved, resulting in less bullying and fighting on the school grounds.

Literacy instruction programs have arguably had limited success because they focus on the technical – but not the social – aspects of literacy instruction. Reform efforts in sub-Saharan Africa have regularly failed to shift pedagogy away from teacher-led whole-class direct instruction to activities that are more effective for learning. In part, the failure is due to a lack of recognition of the social nature of classrooms where teacher-child interactions are conditioned by cultural predispositions. New research from Tanzania identified such challenges to pedagogical reform and points to potential solutions. One approach focuses on the child - to develop their social and emotional competencies. Teachers in Mtwara, Tanzania - but not parents – think that confidence and curiosity are important for student learning and report that interactive teaching activities are less effective in rural areas where students lack these competencies. Evidence suggests that building students’ confidence to participate in class is achievable relatively quickly. A second approach is to adapt teaching activities. Teachers in Tanzania report reluctance to implement teaching activities that undermine the social goals of instruction, such as avoiding embarrassment and promoting a sense of fairness and togetherness in the classroom. Instruction would be more effective if activities are co-designed with teachers to achieve both the social goals and the cognitive/learning goals of teaching.

The Malawi National Reading Program (NRP) is the country's flagship education program aimed at improving the reading skills of all Malawian learners in Standards 1 to 4. USAID supports the NRP by providing finance and technical assistance through several activities including MERIT: Malawi Early Grade Reading Improvement Activity (MERIT), Yesani Ophunzira (YESA), Strengthening Early Grade Reading in Malawi (SEGREM) and Reading for All Malawi (REFAM). MERIT focuses on teacher professional development and support, YESA on continuous assessment and remediation, REFAM on inclusive education, and SEGREM on materials development. Since 2016, the NRP has reached over 56,000 teachers and 4.6 million students in all public schools in Malawi. In addition, results from the 2018 Early Grade Reading Assessment shows that the NRP has had some success in improving reading skills of students in Chichewa and English, and especially for those students in the Standard 4. Implementing successfully at a national scale requires that all partners have had to coordinate and collaborate with each other, with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) in the lead. This panel includes representatives from the MoEST and NRP implementation partners discussing their roles in supporting the NRP and sharing lessons around their approach, achievements, and challenges as they collaborate to get all children learning. The combined experiences of the different partners will be useful for other projects, organizations, and governments who are looking to make a wide-scale change in their education systems.

Recording of #vCIES 2020 conference panel presentation entitled: Effectiveness of Coaching as a Teacher Professional Development Strategy in low-income countries

Learning to read is a critical foundational skill in the early grades. The Government of Uganda in partnership with the Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is working to improve early grade reading. This activity is implemented by RTI International, an independent, nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving the human condition.