Taking reading to scale in developing countries: what really matters?
Marcia Davidson, Cambridge Education
• What is meant by ‘scaling up’ Early Grade Reading programs?
• Some evidence for what works and what does not work to improve student achievement
• Building blocks for scaling EGR programs
Agenda
“Scaling up means expanding, adapting and sustaining successful policies, programs or projects in different places and over time to reach a greater number of people.”
“Scaling up means expanding, adapting and sustaining successful policies, programs or projects in different places people.”
Definitions of scale include:
WB, Shanghai Conference, 2005
WB, Shanghai Conference, 2005
• Attention to the nature of change in classrooms
• Issues of sustainability
Issues of sustainability
• Spread of norms, principles, and beliefs
• Spread of norms, principles, and beliefs
• Shift in ownership such that the reform becomes selfgenerative
Shift in ownership such that the reform becomes selfgenerative
Scaling up
Some challenges we face in scaling successful programs
• School closures, teacher and student absenteeism
• Assumption that success in school is based more on student ability than effective teaching (Glenerster, JPAL, 2013)
• Wide range of student skill levels in one classroom
• Students who miss learning early never catch up and drop out
More challenges
• Teachers may have no training in how to teach children to read
• The most poorly trained teachers are often primary grade teachers
• There are too few books that children in primary grades can actually read
Increasing student achievement
What does NOT work?
More textbooks
• Providing additional textbooks and flipcharts without program changes was found to have no impact on the average student in Western Kenya (Glewwe, et al., 2002)
• Exception: Textbooks improved learning for the highest performing students
Reduction in class size
• No evidence for increase in student achievement (Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, 2009)
• …the broader lesson seems to be that reducing the size of learning groups can be effective, as long as there is a clear strategy - whether instructional or incentive based - for ensuring that additional instructional time is spent wisely (McEwan, 2014)
J
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Hattie’s synthesis of 800 meta
analyses found an average effect size of .09 for teacher knowledge…
Teacher knowledge
School alternatives, more resources, community engagement
• Reducing costs of going to school and providing alternatives to traditional public schools increase both attendance and attainment, but there is no evidence of consistent increases in student achievement
• More and better resources do not improve student achievement unless they change children’s daily experiences at school
• Effective community engagement: Citizens are unlikely to participate in collective action unless there is a concrete course of action they can take
Increasing student achievement
What might work?
Teacher incentives and student learning outcomes
Well-designed incentives for teachers can improve the achievement of students in very low performance settings, but low-skilled teachers need specific guidance to reach minimally acceptable levels of instruction (Murnane & Ganimian, 2014)
Increasing student achievement
What does work?
• Treatments that reduce the size of classes or learning groups when combined with complementary treatments (Duflo, Dupas, et al., 2012)
• Engaging community members in concrete activities tailored to their skills and strengths and designed to support and increase student learning (Banerjee et al., 2010)
Duflo, Dupas, & Kremer, (2009): teachers in primary grades in Kenya were assigned to classes in which class size was reduced by adding a teacher per grade and in half the schools, students were ability grouped for certain subjects. Student learning increased significantly only in the ability grouped classes
Research synthesis: effects on student achievement
Positive effects on student learning from a synthesis of 800 meta-analyses (Hattie, 2010):
• Interventions that direct instruction toward children’s actual learning levels are the most consistently effective at improving learning outcomes
• Teachers that use a direct instruction model (I do, we do, you do) during instruction (.59 ES)
• Teacher professional development that focuses on student learning, continuous assessment, and encourages feedback TO teachers rather than FROM teachers (.90 ES)
Teacher training that includes evidence-based pedagogy, scripted daily lessons, and a welldefined scope and sequence of instruction (Piper & Mugenda, 2013; DeStefano, Slade, & Korda, 2013; GILO project, 2011)
Impact when teachers meet the individual learning needs of students
Providing formative evaluation to teachers
0.90
Refers to teachers attending to what is happening for each student in their classrooms as a result of their instructionwhen teachers ask, “How am I doing?” Highest effects when teachers seek evidence on where students are not doing well
Stronger effects on student learning:
• Interventions that direct instruction toward children’s actual learning levels in their local language
• Teacher professional development that focuses on student learning and continuous assessment that encourages teachers to take responsibility for student learning
• Grouping students by skill levels rather than age or grade
In summary
What else is needed?
Building blocks for designing the process of scaling up and for ensuring that core institutional values and incentives are in place (Linn, 2011, Hartmann & Linn, 2008)
Vision, champions, and a space to grow
Building blocks for scaling innovations include 3 primary elements: A vision of the future, the champions or drivers of the innovation, and a ‘space to grow’ and expand the innovation to new sites over time. The space to grow includes 6 distinct sub-components:
• Fiscal space
• Political space
• Economic space
• Capacity, partnership and cultural space
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