THE IMPORTANCE OF EARLY READING SKILLS: INTERNATIONAL TRENDS & EXPERIENCES

THE IMPORTANCE OF EARLY READING SKILLS:INTERNATIONAL TRENDS & EXPERIENCES Luis Crouch Research VP and Senior Economist ASER CENTRE TALK November 10th 2010 India International Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

Outline • Motivation • “programmatic/bureaucratic” • Pedagogical • History/process • Assessment tools; results • Improvement efforts; results • Bureaucratic interest, global indicators • Ongoing debates • Do basic skills preclude or potentiate the more complex ones? • Uses and abuses of assessment and improvement • Proposed discussion: • Where does India (Pratham, others) fit in this context?

Motivation – Bureaucratic/programmatic • Many countries “doing the right thing” (Chile, South Africa, Mexico, etc.) • But see no impact on learning • Education’s MDGs (less so EFA but still) pale in comparison with Health (internationally, nationally) • In consequence, Health gets more “respect” (and funding) from the forward-looking private donors Click for branch-out

Motivation – Pedagogic • Huge amount of evidence of “cumulative effects”: “Matthew effects” • Unless serious intervention happens early, children are essentially locked into their class of origin

Matthew effect: “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” Christian Bible – St Matthew

In Heckman, SCIENCE,30 JUNE 2006, VOL 312

Research from Senegal by Glick and Sahn Factors predicting permanence in school, in multivariate model (all factors controlling for each other) Controlling for all other factors, what happened to the child in 2nd grade mattered most (note: relative to all others, incl HH Wealth, thus, using controls) In other words: if children doing badly by end of grade 2, other things you can do (more inputs, better infra, good teachers) has a hard time coping with early disadvantage. 2nd grade achievement

Matthew Effect in reading Data fromthe US Children below a certain level by the end of Grade 1, stay behind forever, and the gap widens And, if they cannot read, they fall behind in everything else Words per minute Grade in years and months (thus 1. is 6 months into Grade 1) Good, Simmons, Smith (1998)

1400 Professionals 1000 Workers 600 Welfare prog recipients 200 10 20 24 28 32 36 Vocab by social class of parents age in months Hart and Risley (1995)

Post-secondary participation rates by reading proficiency level at age 15, Canada Knighton and Bussiere, 2006, in McCraken and Murray (date?).

So, early achievement predicts later achievement, and later achievement is key to social and economic growth…

Relationship economic growth and learning, across regions Hanushek & Woessman, Journal of Economic Literature 2008, 46:3, 607–668

But this is done by creating a cognitive middle class: eliminating the worst off performance 90 South Africa 80 Morocco Kuwait PIRLS 2006 Results Qatar 70 60 Keep your eye on this Indonesia 50 Percent of learners Iran 40 30 20 Slovenia Slovak Rep. France 10 Denmark Italy 0 Lowest Medium Highest Reading competency levels

History: many streams come together • Key NGOs in S. Africa such as Molteno, Read Trust since late 1990s • Pratham • Key intellectuals such E Schiefelbein of (Min Ed of Chile and also official at UNESCO) • Specific alarm (“but the kids are not reading!”) and also evidence that improvement can be swift • In 2005 or so, big international agencies started taking note; WB and USAID funded research to put early assessment tools in public domain • Research- and consensus-based; public domain: “EGRA” • Then also fund fast-results methods similar to Pratham

Assessment tools – 1: features • Many have developed • Molteno very early • Pratham also • Later, EGRA • In common: • oral only, no pencil-and-paper, • focus on very earliest skills but do include some comprehension • Some have specific interesting features • ASER: classifies so clear remediation implications and utility • EGRA: uses fluency explicitly, specific adaptation to countries but international framework, expert-panel-validated • Applications • Some 40-50 countries, gov’t and NGO, both EGRA and others • See clickable list

Assessment tools – 1: features • Different components • EGRA typically: • Pure listening (sounds, story comprehension) • Book awareness • Letter sound and fluency • Familiar words and fluency • Passage reading and comprehending • Writnig • ASER • Letters • Words • Two levels of stories

Assessment tools – 2: some results • Training • EGRA: about 1 week; great emphasis on inter-rater reliabiliy; 95% or so: why? • Reliability obtained • Around 0.9 or higher; never lower than 0.7 • Concurrent validity with comprehension: poorly measured but no lower than 0.5 • Principal components analysis: there IS a skill called “early reading” • Interesting correlations ASER – EGRA • They track each other very well • Question for us: why bother with fluency? Discussion topic?

Assessment tools – 2: some results: children are NOT learning to read Assessment tools – 2: some results • Training • EGRA: about 1 week; great emphasis on inter-rater reliabiliy; 95% or so: why? • Reliability obtained • Around 0.9 or higher; never lower than 0.7 • Concurrent validity with comprehension: poorly measured but no lower than 0.5 • Principal components analysis: there IS a skill called “early reading” • Interesting correlations ASER – EGRA • They track each other very well • Question for us: why bother with fluency? Discussion topic?

Improvement efforts • Many key local and international NGOs • SA: Molteno, Read Trust • Went continental in some cases, MoltenoZambia, Ghana • Peru: Solaris • Pratham • Save the Children • RTI • Many others • Also governments: go national • The Gambia • Nicaragua

South Africa results in half a year

Liberia improvement of results in 1 ½ years !! !!

Improvement efforts: lessons The Five T’s • Time: set time aside to EXPLICITLY teach reading • Tongue: start with mother tongue; faster; more solid; transfers easily • Teaching: teach teacher to teach reading: explicity, direct, scripted lessons if need be, free if can be: “As much freedom as possible, as much scripting as necessary” Focus on comprehension from day 1, but do the phonics • Texts: flood villages with materials; create “instant literate environment” • Test: assess, communicate, agitate, advocate, get policies changed; locally and nationally

Bureaucratic global interest, indicators • So far no wide adoption of a learning outcome internationally • FTI made first start • All children should read with enough fluency and comprehension to “read to learn” by end Grade 2 • USAID likely to copy • Countries considering • Donors funding larger and more serious RCTs and other improvement efforts • At scale • Support to countries that want to go national (beyond pilots, beyond regions)

Ongoing debates (just a few of them!) • Fluency: proxy or instructional strategy? • Does the basic displace the more complex, or does it aid it? See Finland curricular example: basics AND complex. “Hold the pencil right” but also “Analyze the text.” See clickable Finnish curriculum • Setting goals for fluency • Use correct words per minute? If not, how • Do we need numerical fluency measure? • Goal-setting, yes; teachers, no??? What is useful? • Scripting lessons versus freedom: how compromise? • How to get politicians to make it a goal to go national

Health has an actual outcome as a target, and access is only an indicator. Goals: Education: coverage; Health: results Indicators: Education mostly coverage again: ?, Health: coverage How silly is the ed sector?

Same with infant mortality: target is an outcome, coverage only an indicator

Some examples of how much better-focused the health sector is, in some donor statements. Not just USAID, also CIDA (just to pick an example)

THE IMPORTANCE OF EARLY READING SKILLS: INTERNATIONAL TRENDS & EXPERIENCES