ATAR Y2 Work Plan 20140902.docx - pdf.usaid.govpdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00MPJM.pdf · reading skills in targeted primary schools by improving reading materials and instruction

Draft Submitted July 20, 2016 Final Submitted July 30, 2016 Final Revised Submitted August 3, 2016 This report and reflection of achievements are made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID.) The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of Chemonics International Inc. and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

Quarterly Report READING FOR SUCCESS – SMALL SCALE EXPERIMENTATION (RFS-SSE) Contract No. AID-OAA-I-14-00055 Task Order No. AID-608-TO-15-00002 Year 1 Quarter 3: April – June 2016

RFS-SSE: Quarterly Report, April 2016 – June 2016 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACRONYMS 3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4

I. PROJECT OVERVIEW 5

II. ACTIVITY AND ACHIVEMENTS 6

A. Test the effectiveness of a new approach to Arabic reading lessons and the impact on student

reading competencies in grades 1 and 2 6

B. Introduce summer reading enrichment activities and test their effectiveness in reducing

learning loss among students in grades 1 and 2 9

C. Cross-Cutting Activity: Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) 10

III. MONITORING AND EVALUATION 14

IV. CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED 16

V. FINANCE, MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION 17

A. Personnel 17

B. Modifications and Amendments 17

C. Financial Information 17

VI. PLANNED ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT QUARTER (JULY– SEPTEMBER 2016) 18

ANNEXES 19

Annex 1: Executive summary in French 19

Annex 2: Success Story (Everyone’s Win: A Happy Learner is a Happy Teacher) 19

Annex 3: Deliverables for the Quarter 21


ACRONYMS

AREF

DOEVS

Regional Academy for Education and Training

Directorate of Organization and Evaluation of School life CNEE CNIP

National Center for Evaluation and Examinations Centre National des Innovations Pédagogiques

CRMEF Teacher Training Institute CSO Civil Society Organizations EGRA Early Grade Reading Assessment MOE Ministry of Education and Vocational Training MSA Modern Standard Arabic RFS–SSE Reading for Success — Small Scale Experimentation SSME Snapshot of School Management Effectiveness STS School-to-School International UCFC

USAID

MEL

Central Unit for Teacher Education

United States Agency for International Development

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY1

The USAID/Morocco Reading for Success – Small Scale Experimentation (RFS-SSE) Project is pleased to present the third quarterly report, covering the period of April 1 to June 30, 2016. Building off the momentum from the many achievements of the previous six months, the third quarter was largely focused on reflection and evaluation of the activities and the experimental lesson plans that are being piloted, in order to improve the intervention for the upcoming academic year that will commence in September 2016. Additionally, this quarter reemphasized the participatory and consensus driven approach of this program and complete ownership it has created amongst the inspectors, trainers, and teachers participating in the intervention. This was particularly demonstrated during the follow-on supplemental teacher trainings that were conducted in April 2016. The supplemental teacher trainings were fully designed and led by the regional coordinators and trainers in each province. The trainers in each province put together their own two-day training agenda based on the feedback and suggestions that were gleaned from the diagnostic field visits the previous month. The trainers themselves coordinated with the teachers and the schools to find dates that worked, and worked with the provincial delegation to secure training spaces and meals as needed. This training was further supported by a one-day model lesson demonstrated in each province by an exemplary teacher. Not only these trainings were effective and very well received by the teachers, it was an inspiring demonstration of the ownership of the approach at every level of the Ministry of Education.

1 The Executive Summary in French has been included as Annex 1


I. PROJECT OVERVIEW

The RFS-SSE project is designed to develop and test effective approaches to strengthen children’s reading skills in targeted primary schools by improving reading materials and instruction techniques while also enhancing the capacity of schools and communities to deliver high-quality instructional and enrichment programs. The program will develop and test reading lessons in Arabic amongst a control group of first and second grade students in 90 schools across eight provinces/four regions in Morocco. These grade 1 reading lessons will be based on a two-pronged approach – phonetic and vocabulary enhancing - and will introduce three added values: (1) a phonetic approach to reading; (2) the utilization of stories for vocabulary enrichment; and (3) an overall new reading strategy. A phonetic versus Whole Language approach In current reading curricula in Moroccan government schools, the traditional “whole language” reading approach is used to teach reading. This method teaches children to read by recognizing words as a whole. For instance, a teacher starts with the sentence, “A boy drinks water”, and the teacher then highlights and reiterates the word “boy”. The RFS-SSE project has adopted a phonemic method of teaching, which focuses on starting from the basest level of a word – the sound of the letters. In the intervention schools, students will spend half of their reading lesson decoding real words and non-words (or invented words) to encourage the students to focus on the sounds different letters make rather than the letters’ names or words they are incorporated in. Within the approach, the letters will be taught in an order that breaks from the classic structure of the Arabic syllabary into a system that starts with letters that are both easier to pronounce and write. This system allows students to build a larger base of recognized letters before having to tackle letters that are more difficult to pronounce and write. The letters covered in a particular class will then be incorporated into the second half of the lesson devoted to reading stories and building vocabulary that emphasizes the sound they just learnt. Utilizing stories in a new way Stories are seldom used in current reading curricula, and when they are, they tend to be focused on larger more abstract ideas. To reinforce the phonemic approach, the second teaching track will introduce stories that focus on specific vocabulary that utilizes the letters covered in previous lessons. The intervention will employ two different types of stories during the course of the first year of school. In order to practice individual/independent reading, students will read a series of short stories that will increase in length and difficulty through the weeks. These short stories will use as many words as possible with a given letter, and making sure that the letter sound is used in different places in a word (beginning versus the middle of a word). The stories will also focus on using concrete words like “pencil” that have a very specific meaning that need very little context, if any at all, to understand the story. There will also be a focus on functional words that students would be able to use often in day-to-day life. During the course of the year, these functional short stories, will be accompanied by larger story-tale that captures and heightens the imagination of the students. These tales will be taught as a shared


reading exercise, where the teachers can engage the students in games and exercises that will strengthen the retention of the material covered therein. As the amount of letters progresses over time, so does the length and complexity of the stories. When students start to approach the more complex stories, the stories will shift to a stronger focus towards comprehension and vocabulary building. A new reading strategy By combining these two tracks, a new approach to teaching reading in Morocco will emerge where students will learn to read but also encourage their creativity and critical thinking skills. These skills will be developed through activities, such as for instance before reading a text, students will guess what the content of a story might be just by analyzing the story’s title. They may also be asked to look at the cover art of a story they are reading, and tell the teacher what they think the story may be about before they start reading. As they read, students will be asked questions about the story to gauge student comprehension and promote creativity. After the story is finished, students will be asked about the overall themes of the story. To adapt the RFS-SSE program to the existing criteria for early grade reading, the new approach will still incorporate core values that are expected by the MOE. However, values will be incorporated into the stories in an implicit manner, rather than an explicit one, making them more adaptable and universal, and allowing students to further build on their critical thinking skills.

II. ACTIVITY AND ACHIVEMENTS

A. Test the effectiveness of a new approach to Arabic reading lessons and the impact on student reading competencies in grades 1 and 2

The quarter was kicked off by completing the last of AREF meeting in early April. Three AREF meetings were held during the previous quarter. Oujda AREF Meeting – The Oujda AREF marked the completion of the AREF meetings at the regional level, where school directors from both intervention and control schools from Figuig and Oujda were invited. The Oujda AREF meeting was co-facilitated by Mr. Chafiqi, MOE Director of Curricula, and the Oujda Academy Director, Mr. Dibb. Similarly, to the previous regional meetings, the AREF meeting aimed at further familiarizing the school directors about the project, its objectives, and the new reading approach. The second part of the meeting was a mini-workshop facilitated by the Oujda inspectors/trainers to introduce the school directors to key theoretical aspects of the approach. Diagnostic Report Round Table – In the previous quarter, in March, a diagnostic survey was conducted via the regional coordinators. The survey was administered to 32 teachers in 32 different schools by 24 trainers. The purpose of the diagnostic was to identify teacher’s needs and the challenges they were


facing in implementing the new approach. Once the diagnostic was completed, a one-day round-table was held in Rabat on April 11th. The round table included all of the regional coordinators, representatives from the MOE Directorate of Curricula, and representatives from USAID. This was an opportunity for all parties to hear feedback on the approach and suggestions of what could be improved and where additional support was required. A clear consensus that came from the round table was that further training and support for the teachers was required. Supplemental Teacher Training Workshops at the Regional Level – Following the strong recommendation from the diagnostic report, the regional coordinators with the assistance of trainers in their respective provinces organized supplemental teacher’s trainings that took place in all provinces on May 11 and 12, with the exception of Inzegane-Ait Melloul and Tiznit where the workshop was held on May 13 and 14 due to the MOE visits to these provinces. Out of the 181 teachers trained in the original teacher training in February, 173 participated in the supplemental training. The two-day training was independently organized by each province. The trainers were charged with proposing the agenda and topics to be covered, as well as the actual presentations within the workshop. Each of the supplemental trainings focused on the specific needs encountered by each region; however, most of them were similar in nature, such as, best didactical technique to create linkages between reading and oral expression (expression orale), the use of the new intellectual concepts and terms suggested by the approach, how to overcome the absence of pedagogical tools to animate and explain the stories, as well as the practice of the syllabification (breaking words based on the different syllables) and segmentation. It is worth noting that teacher’s supplemental teacher training was entirely organized and facilitated by the regional coordinators at the provincial level. This is a great testimony to their continuous commitment, their mastery of the new reading approach, and most importantly the ownership they feel towards the intervention. Teacher Model Lesson Simulation - In addition to the supplemental teacher training, the regional coordinators organized a one day Teacher Model Lesson Demonstration on May 24 in each of the eight target provinces. These demonstrations were attended by the same teachers that participated in the supplemental training. Each demonstration was led by a teacher who volunteered to demonstrate a full class session for other teachers to learn from. These sessions emphasized the use of practical demonstration for teaching strategies through a simulated class. The demonstrations enabled a shared learning


experience among the teachers which generated creative ideas and facilitation techniques for the teachers to use in their own classrooms. Lesson Plan Development for Grade 1 and Grade 2 – In order to officially launch the revisions on the grade 1 lesson plans and commence the work on the grade 2 lesson plans, a six-day workshop was held in Rabat from May 16 - 21. The workshop was attended by the same 11 provincial inspectors and 6 CRMEF trainers who were involved with the drafting of the original grade 1 lesson plans. The workshop was led and facilitated by the project technical staff in collaboration with local consultants from the University of Fez. During the six-day workshop, the first three days were focused on Grade 1. For Grade 1, the participants shared their feedback on what they observed worked with the original model and what did not. The technical team presented a revised model based on this feedback from the field. Additionally, an important part of the workshop was introducing the new sequence of letters for teaching. The second part of the workshop was devoted to developing an approach for teaching Grade 2. It was essential to build consensus on where students should have reached by the end of Grade 1 and how to continue supporting the phonemic approach now that students have already started to read when they enter the second grade. Writing the Reading Lesson Plans – Following the Lesson Plan Development workshop, the technical team in collaboration with international experts incorporated the conclusions into the lesson plan models and the annual teaching structure for each year. In June the participants of the workshop, who are also the writers of the lesson plans, were sent the final templates for Grade 1 in order for them to write the actual lesson plans. For Grade 1, the lesson plans were distributed letters and template type. Four of the delegations (provinces) were requested to work on the template of teaching 1 letter a week and the other four delegations were requested to work on the template of teaching 2 letters a week. In the following quarter, at the beginning of July, the same delegations will be requested to work on the Grade 2 template, which will be divided based on domains. The lesson plans for both grades will be finalized in the following quarter, most specifically in the Lesson Plan Harmonization and Validation workshop scheduled for July 24 – 29, 2016.


Stories and Text Development Workshop – In order to support the vocabulary building track of the approach, a Story and Text Development workshop was held in Rabat on June 23 – 25. In line with the participatory approach of the project, 15 teachers from the eight target provinces were selected to participate. The workshop was led by two international experts with experience in developing leveled early grade reading materials. During the workshop the teachers worked in groups to develop 11 short leveled stories and theme based texts for Grade 1 and 18 short leveled stories and theme based texts for Grade 2. Based on the guidance from the international consultants and pre-established criteria developed by the technical team, the participants learnt to draft simple age appropriate texts that reinforce the phonemic approach and universal values. A representative from the division of values from the MOE was also present at the workshop to validate that the stories being developed were in line with the values and principles of the MOE. The workshop was seen as very successful not only for producing the required texts, but for introducing new concepts of teaching and reading to these teachers. Additionally, this participatory workshop reinforced MOE ownership which will facilitate the adoption of the approach across the country. In the following quarter, the technical team will finalize the stories and texts and have them validated by the MOE prior to print and use. Roadmap for Coaches – During this quarter, the technical team has commenced the process of developing a roadmap for including coaches in the pilot program. In order to provide the coaching support to the teachers in the target schools, RFS-SSE has met with the Division Director of the CNIP, who is spearheading the government coaching program. During this quarter, RFS-SSE has explored the option of working with the CNIP to train the coaches already identified by them to either be trained in the new reading approach or in tandem with new coaches solely identified for the RFS-SSE pilot. However, after a mapping exercise undertaken by the technical team, it is unlikely that the government coaching program will have enough coaches in the upcoming year to provide the additional support to RFS-SSE. Hence, in the upcoming quarter the team will develop and propose alternative solutions to providing the teachers with the additional support and mentorship they will require.

B. Introduce summer reading enrichment activities and test their effectiveness in reducing learning loss among students in grades 1 and 2

This quarter did not focus on Result 2 of the project, as summer grants program will only be administered in 2017. By condensing the summer program into one year, this will allow the program to select students


for the summer grant activities who are in schools currently receiving the reading intervention under Result 1. In order to accommodate this change in scope, the project team held several planning meetings with our partner organization, Al Jisr, in order to map out the activities building up to the summer program in 2017. This quarter has ended with the partner organization starting a mapping process of all the community based organizations or associations operating near the programs intervention school.

C. Cross-Cutting Activity: Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA)

EGRA Baseline Presentation - In January 2016, an EGRA baseline study was completed to test the reading capacity of grade 1 students prior to the implementation of the new reading approach in 181 classrooms. On April 18, a baseline presentation took place at the CNEE. At the presentation were representatives from the CNEE, representatives of the Directorate of Curricula, representatives from USAID, four regional coordinators, and one teacher. The objective of the presentation was to present the baseline methodology analysis, EGRA sub-tasks indicators and the existing correlations between the EGRA and SSME questionnaires. Some of the key findings presented below illustrate both control and experimental groups, as the results were almost identical. The strong positive asymmetric results between the control and experimental group demonstrates the quality and assiduous sampling that was undertaking in selecting both control and experimental groups.

On average students read 23 syllables per minute

On average students read 7 non-word (invented words) correctly per minute

16.2% (n=287) of the total sample of students were not able to provide a single correct answer for the syllable identification (unable to name letters)

In addition to the EGRA test, Snapshot for School Management Effectiveness (SSME) questionnaires yield a rich picture of school management practices through direct classroom observation, inventories, and interviews with key stakeholders such as school directors.

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400

UNABLE TO NAME LETTERS (SYLLABLE IDENTIFICATION)

NON-WORD READING

ORAL READING FLUENCY

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

READING COMPREHENSION

287

702

794

795

1307

Number of students with zero scores


Resources in school for reading:

98% students have an exercise book

95.6 % of the visited classrooms had a Blackboard/whiteboard

The teacher’s guides in Arabic was observed in 76.7% of the classes

63.3% of the visited classes had no other books/booklets available and accessible in the classroom

81.1% of the visited classes were organized in rows,14.4 % in small groups and 2.2 % in circles Equity and support from home: Students that come from families that have more resources perform much better in reading. Students that receive more support at home are much better readers. Contributing factors include having:

Parents and/or siblings that are literate;

Access to reading materials at home (28.7% of the students said that they had magazines or newspapers at home)

The vast majority of students (95.8%) have water at home. Students not having water at home (4.2%) presented with lower performance averages compared to the other students for the entire set of EGRA subtasks.

Enumerator Refresher Training – The same 56 EGRA enumerators that were trained for the baseline assessment in January participated in another three-day EGRA and SSME refresher training in Rabat. The participants were originally selected by the MOE and were equally sourced from each of the eight target provinces. The enumerators were six females and 50 male participants. They were re-trained to administer all six EGRA subtasks on tablets using the electronic data capture application Tangerine. A smaller sub-set of participants were additionally trained to administer all six SSME tools. In addition to the 56 Enumerators, the project had selected eight new regional representatives (two from each region) to coordinate the data collection in the field, they were also trained at the workshop. After the completion of the 3-day refresher training that was geared primarily to the enumerators, there


was a separate one-day training for the eight regional representatives. They were trained to be Provincial Field Coordinators (PFCs) to coordinate and facilitate the data collection in the field, in order to ensure that data collection protocols and procedures were being followed properly in the field.

Enumerators also experienced one afternoon of a real-life practice in neighboring schools. During these practice sessions, teams of enumerators piloted administering the EGRA tools with Grade 1 students, while the eight PFCs and the training facilitators observed the enumerators’ performance. The enumerators used this opportunity to practice Inter-Rater Reliability (IRR), which consists of a second enumerator scoring simultaneously to ensure that the assessors are scoring per the guidelines of the EGRA training. This quality control was

following guidance of the most recent EGRA toolkit, published in April 2016. Enumerator consistency during training was above 95 percent agreement depending on the subtask, which means that the enumerators were scoring the students consistently and according to the guidelines provided


Midline 1 Data Collection - Data collection in the selected intervention and control group schools took place from May 16 - 28. All eight regional teams completed their visits to schools prior to the deadline. However, as this is a longitudinal study, the exact same students that were tested during the baseline had to be tested during the midline 1. Through close coordination with the newly trained regional coordinators and the MELP team, select enumerators were requested to return to certain schools to test student who were absent during the first visit. It was particularly important to work with the school directors to understand the reasons for why a student was absent, as testing would only be done if the student and their parents were comfortable with it. As a result, there were 52 students who have dropped out of the assessment. Overall, the enumerators were able to collect data from 97 percent of students tested during the baseline. The final EGRA Midline 1 report will be completed by the end of August. Regional Focus Group – During the month of June, the monitoring and evaluation team conducted six Focus Groups (FGs) in: Figuig, Oujda, Kenitra, Temara, Taounate and El Hajeb.


Each focus group lasted approximately three hours and included between 5 - 9 teachers’ randomly selected from the pool of 181 teachers participating in the intervention. The Focus Groups were held at the respective Academy (AREFs) and were conducted as round-tables. To facilitate the conversation, first the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire organized into 6 sections and comprising 34 Likert-scale questions. The participants were then asked to complete a one page Yes/No checklist that listed a series of elements in relation to the two components of the reading method, phonologic awareness and vocabulary enrichment. The second part of the focus group consisted of a moderated conversation representing the qualitative aspect of the focus group. The preliminary findings based on these focus groups were encouraging. The teachers did not shy away from expressing ways that the intervention and tools could be improved; however, the teachers also expressed their enthusiasm and appreciation for this new approach to reading. Almost unanimously, the use of stories as a tool to improve student’s ability to read and acquire new vocabulary has been shared as a success among all the teachers participating in the conversations. The focus groups were an arena where the program was able to witness first hand teacher’s satisfaction and even pride towards their student’s aptitude to adapt to a new way of learning in such a short period of time. Both quantitative and qualitative focus group findings will help shape the revisions for the lesson plans, help improve the next teacher’s training in September, as well as help feed into improvements for the teacher’s guidebooks. Moreover, the recommendations and feedback shared by the teachers will be taken into consideration when developing the pedagogical tools for the teachers next academic year.

III. MONITORING AND EVALUATION

This quarter three project indicators were measured/updated, namely two outputs and one outcome indicators as indicated below.


Eight new data collection coordinators were trained during the EGRA enumerator refresher training. These eight new coordinators are cumulative to the other trained teachers, trainers and enumerators as indicated below – 278 (Q2) in addition to 8 (Q3) result in a total of 286. In addition to the 97 school directors attended the past three ARFE meetings, this quarter 38 school directors from Orient region attended the AREF meeting. The cumulative sum for this indicator becomes 135 school directors. Which represent the 90 + 45 schools of the intervention. Finally, the third indicator measured this quarter is an outcome indicator showing the percentage of trained trainers (total 41) that have conducted follow-up sessions with the trained teachers. There were two main follow up sessions conducted by the trainers, the diagnostic survey and the supplemental teacher’s training. Among the 41 trained trainers, 24 participated in these follow up sessions, among them 1 woman and 23 male participants. Indicator Progress Table:

Program objective: Activities tested and stakeholder engagement strengthened to improve reading skills in early grades

Baseline Value

Q1 Q2 Q3 Target

R.1.2. Teachers have implemented the new reading lesson instructions

Composite output

Number of teachers/educators/teaching assistants who successfully completed in-service training or received intensive coaching or mentoring with USG support (F indicator)

0 - Teachers: 181 Trainers: 41 Enumerators: 56 (baseline) Actual Total: 278

8 new EGRA Data Collection Coordinators

180

Output Number of school directors participating to an activity/workshop or other project-related activities

0 -

97 (Rabat, Fes-Meknes, Souss Massa)

38 (Orient) 90

R.1.3. Trainers have implemented acquired skills with the teachers

Outcome % of trained trainers who conducted follow up training practices based on the new approach with the teachers

0 - - 58 % 70%


IV. CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED

A. Challenges

While the text and story development workshop was successful, three-day workshop during Ramadan (shorter days) was a challenge to meet the intended results all while respecting the required quality criteria. More days are encouraged for future and similar production workshop.

A considerable challenge we have faced this quarter were the shorter work days due to Ramadan, as well as subsequently a series of holidays. This was exacerbated by the exams sessions during the month of June. Exams limited our access to teachers during this month while the story development workshop had to be scheduled before their annual leave commences in July. Consequently, many steps/activities had to be finalized during the months of May and June to ensure that all required stakeholders were available for the different workshop and/or remotely accessible via email when necessary.

A continuous challenge this quarter has been coordinating and finding consensus between all the parties involved in the development of the lesson plans. This includes the MOE, USAID, and numerous international and local consultants, and the regional inspectors themselves. Final consensus and harmonization of the lessons plan will take place later in the next quarter during the Grade 1 and 2 Harmonization and Validation workshop scheduled in July 2016.

B. Lessons Learned

One important lesson learned that was reemphasized during the focus groups is the importance

of continuous support and training to the teachers during the course of the year. Continuous support provides the teachers with means to tackle challenges as they arise, and if support is provided in a collaborative way, it is also a mean for them to learn from each other – community of practice. This was successfully demonstrated during the supplemental teacher trainings and the classroom demonstration.

We were also reminded that a consultative and participatory approach is crucial to secure ownership even if there is not always unanimity on all topics. This was particularly evidence as ideas were being debated during the lesson development workshop in May.

An important lesson learned was not to lose sight that this is an experiment that could be scaled up across the country if adopted by the MOE. Hence, it is important to make sure that there would be no repercussions to the MOE for decisions taken during the experimental phase. For example, hiring a publishing house for the creation of stories to be used in the classroom would have not been a problem during the experimentation phase, but could cause problems if the approach was adopted nationwide. By holding a workshop instead, the program was able to mediate these concerns, as it was a collaborative effort with the MOE. Selecting teachers from


the target provinces also ensured balanced representation of cultural/regional diversity between the regions in the stories and text developed.

V. FINANCE, MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION

A. Personnel

As of June 30, 2016, the following personnel were engaged under the Morocco RFS-SSE project:

Morocco RFS-SSE Field Office Team

Position Title Name

Acting Program Director Ms. Shamineh Byramji

Deputy Director and MEL Advisor Mr. Abdelaziz El Ghordaf

Teacher’s Professional Development Advisor Mr. Miloud Ahbeddou

MEL Specialist Ms. Selma Talha Jebril

Reading Specialist Ms. Iman El Haddouzi

Director of Operations and Finance Ms. Tahra Kham

Finance Specialist Ms. Fatima Azzahra El Mansour

Administrative Assistant Mr. Driss Chaouki

Driver and Logistics Officer Mr. M’Hammed El Hamzaoui

B. Modifications and Amendments

There were no contract modifications or amendments this quarter.

C. Financial Information

The total budget under this task order is $3,997,764, of which $3,615,603 has been obligated. The third quarter of the RFS-SSE activity has been completed with invoice submissions to USAID on the following dates:

Invoice 1 – Oct. 2015 November 25, 2015 Invoice 2 – Nov. 2015 December 28, 2015 Invoice 3 – Dec. 2015 January 28, 2016 Invoice 4 – Jan. 2016 February 18, 2016 Invoice 5 – Feb. 2016 March 18, 2016 Invoice 6 – March 2016 April 15, 2016 Invoice 7 – April 2016 May 18, 2016 Invoice 8 – May 2016 June 17, 2016 Invoice 9 – June 2016 July 19, 2016

The RFS-SSE accruals through the end of the third quarter are as follows:


ANNEXES

Annex 1: Executive summary in French

Le projet USAID/Maroc Lire Pour Réussir – Expérimentation à Petite Echelle (LPR-EPE) présente son troisième rapport trimestriel pour la période du 1er Avril au 30 Juin 2016. Le projet est mis en place par Chemonics International en étroite collaboration avec le Ministère de l’éducation (MOE) et en partenariat avec School-to-School International (STS), Association Al Jisr et ALCO Alternative Consultants. Suite à un semestre riche en réalisation, le troisième trimestre a largement été axé sur la réflexion et l'évaluation des activités de lecture afin d'améliorer les différents axes d'intervention pour la prochaine année scolaire 2016-2017. En outre, ce trimestre a encore une fois mis l’accent et favoriser l’approche participative et le consensus parmi les différentes parties prenantes et ce dans les nombreux ateliers, réunions et formations. Cela a particulièrement été démontré lors du suivi des formations supplémentaires, qui ont eu lieux lors du mois de Mai au profit des enseignants. Ces formations de suivi ont été conçues et mis en place par les coordonnateurs régionaux et formateurs dans chacune des 8 directions provinciales. Un programme de soutien, d’accompagnement et de renforcement des capacités de enseignants a été mis en œuvre par les formateurs pendant une durée de deux jours. Les formateurs ont travaillé de manière indépendante et dynamique pour s’assurer que cette activité de soutien apporte les solutions et réponses nécessaires aux difficultés rencontrées par les enseignants. Cet accompagnement, a été étayée par une démonstration interactive, une leçon modèle d'un jour animée dans chaque direction provinciale par un enseignant ou une enseignante. Cette pratique d’apprentissage interactive a permis aux enseignants de renforcer et d’apprendre de nouveaux éléments afin de les aider dans la mise en œuvre de cette approche de lecture avec leurs élèves.

Annex 2: Success Story (Everyone’s Win: A Happy Learner is a Happy Teacher)


Badia and Zahiya are first grade

school teachers working in the city of

Oujda, located in the northeastern

corner of Morocco. Since February

2016, the two teachers have been

implementing Reading for Success- an

experimental reading project- in their

classrooms. Based on a phonics

approach for instruction, this

experimental project aims to help

beginning readers understand how

letters correspond to sounds and

identify common spelling patterns.

Though the project is still in its

infancy, Badia and Zahiya are already

feeling the positive effects of this new

method both on their students and

on themselves. During a recent

teacher focus group, Badia shared,

“This phonics-based approach has

brought back the child in me! (…) I

have been a first grade teacher for 20

years, and forgot how much I loved

my job but this reading method

revived this feeling in me.”

“Despite the many existing challenges

to improve primary education in

Morocco, seeing my student’s

enthusiasm, joy and passion for the

stories these past four months, gave

me a sense of hope and made me

realize that despite all challenges if

there is a will, there is a way (…) and

we as teachers have the responsibility

to never give up this will!”

Since February 2016, the USAID Reading For Success-Small Scale Experimentation reading activity has trained 181 first grade teachers in the new phonics-based reading method with 5,737 first graders across four regions in Morocco

Photo credit: Chemonics International Inc.


Annex 3: Deliverables for the Quarter

- One success story (Annex 2) - EGRA Baseline Report

Documents

ATAR Y2 Work Plan 20140902.docx - pdf.usaid.govpdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00MPJM.pdf · reading skills in targeted primary schools by improving reading materials and instruction