Number 155Spring 2017

Progress toward a Literate World:

Early Reading Interventions in

Low- and Middle-Income Countries

New Directions forChild and Adolescent Development

Amber GoveApril MoraPeggy McCardleEditors

Progress towarda Literate World:Early ReadingInterventionsin Low- andMiddle-IncomeCountries

Amber GoveApril Mora

Peggy McCardleEditors

New Directions forChild and Adolescent

Development

Elena L.Grigorenko

Editor-in-Chief

William DamonFounding Editor

Number 155 • Spring 2017Jossey-BassSan Francisco

Progress toward a Literate World: Early Reading Interventions in Low- and Middle-Income CountriesAmber Gove, April Mora, Peggy McCardle (Eds.)New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, no. 155Editor-in-Chief: Elena L. Grigorenko

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Elena L. Grigorenko, Editor-in-ChiefUniversity of Houston, TX

Editorial Board

Baptiste Barbot, PhDPace University, USA

Linda Jarvin, PhDParis College of Art, France

Fumiko Hoeft, MD, PhDUniversity of California San Francisco, USA

David D. Preiss, PhDPontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile

Peggy McCardle, PhD, MPHPeggy McCardle Consulting, LLC, USA

Jens F. Beckmann, Dr. rer. nat.Durham University, UK

CONTENTS

Introduction 9Peggy McCardleThis article introduces a thematic journal issue on early reading in-terventions in low- and middle-income countries, their effectiveness,and the challenges encountered in implementing, studying, and scalingthem up. The importance of evidence-based practice, cultural adapta-tion, documenting the effectiveness of programs for students, and en-suring teacher education and support are emphasized. There is a clearneed for continued and increased research on programs and interven-tions for children and teachers in low- and middle-income countries.

1. Great Expectations: A Framework for Assessing andUnderstanding Key Factors Affecting Student Learningof Foundational Reading Skills

13

Audrey-Marie Moore, Amber Gove, Karen TietjenThis article addresses the evolution of the underlying theories of changein global education reform efforts between 1990 and 2015, informed bythe shift in focus from access to quality and learning. We review recentdata regarding how different types of donor interventions (i.e., struc-tural or pedagogical) have contributed to improved reading outcomesand compare effect sizes over a series of intervention studies conductedfrom 2003 to 2015. Against this background, we present a frameworkfor understanding how the intensity, frequency, and fidelity of the in-terventions as well as the enabling environments of reform affect themagnitude and rates at which reading and learning outcomes can beexpected to improve. In this, we present the context for the articlesthat follow, identifying the program design characteristics and types ofinterventions that increase the likelihood of successful expansion ofthe interventions commonly referred to as “scaling-up,” the ability tosustain interventions, and the value (cost effectiveness) of reading pro-grams in low- and middle-income countries.

2. Lifewide Learning for Early Reading Development 31Amy Jo Dowd, Elliott Friedlander, Christine Jonason, Jane Leer,Lisa Zook Sorensen, Jarrett Guajardo, Nikhit D’Sa, Clara Pava,Lauren PisaniThe authors examine the relationships between children’s reading abil-ities and the enabling environment for learning in the context of Savethe Children’s Literacy Boost program. They conceptualize the enablingenvironment at a micro level, with two components: the home liter-acy environment, represented by reading materials/habits at home, andthe community learning environment (community reading activities).Using longitudinal reading scores of 6,874 students in 424 schools in12 sites across Africa and Asia, there was 1) a modest but consistentrelationship between students’ home literacy environments and read-ing scores, and 2) a strong relationship between reading gains andparticipation in community reading activities, suggesting that inter-ventions should consider both home and community learning environ-ments and their differential influences on interventions across differentlow-resource settings.

3. Differentiation of Effect Across Systemic Literacy Programsin Rwanda, the Philippines, and Senegal

51

Rachel Christina, Elena VinogradovaIn this article, we compare three localized applications (in Rwanda,Senegal, and the Philippines) of a literacy approach for resource-leanenvironments and examine the factors influencing its impact in eachcontext, considering dosage, duration, and environment. In Rwanda,a bilingual early grade literacy initiative implemented in partnershipwith the ministry of education included literacy standards develop-ment, training for early grade teachers, materials development, lead-ership support, and community-based activities. In the Philippines, aprimary grades trilingual curriculum was implemented in close col-laboration with the Department of Education to strengthen its literacycomponent through standards development, teacher and school leadertraining, materials development, and awareness campaigns. Finally, inSenegal, a program was conducted supporting the YMCA’s efforts toimprove local educational outcomes by training youth volunteers tomentor students at risk and by engaging families and communities.

4. Impact of Teachers’ Practices on Students’ ReadingComprehension Growth in Guatemala

67

Fernando Rubio, Leslie Rosales de Veliz,Marıa Cristina Perdomo Mosquera, Ventura Salanic LopezThis article discusses an educational intervention, with a strong em-phasis on reading development in a bilingual context, in the WesternHighlands of Guatemala (WH), a highly disadvantaged region, wherethe majority of the population is of Mayan origin and primary educa-tion is poor. The majority of the students in the Western Highlandsspeak a Mayan language as their mother tongue, yet they are generallytaught in Spanish. We assisted in the development and implementationof a bilingual/intercultural education model including teacher trainingat the university level and bilingual materials development. Implemen-tation included education for administrators and teacher coaching. Forthis intervention, aimed at improving reading outcomes, we report datafor the first 3 years of implementation, and offer insights for system-wide interventions in low-resource areas.

5. Designing for Scale: Reflections on Rolling Out ReadingImprovement in Kenya and Liberia

77

Amber Gove, Medina Korda Poole, Benjamin PiperSince 2008, the Ministries of Education in Liberia and Kenya have un-dertaken transitions from small-scale pilot programs to improve read-ing outcomes among primary learners to the large-scale implementa-tion of reading interventions. The effects of the pilots on learning out-comes were significant, but questions remained regarding whether suchlarge gains could be sustained at scale. In this article, the authors dissectthe Liberian and Kenyan experiences with implementing large-scalereading programs, documenting the critical components and condi-tions of the program designs that affected the likelihood of successfullytransitioning from pilot to scale. They also review the design, deploy-ment, and effectiveness of each pilot program and the scale, design,duration, enabling conditions, and initial effectiveness results of thescaled programs in each country. The implications of these results forthe design of both pilot and large-scale reading programs are discussedin light of the experiences of both the Liberian and Kenyan programs.

6. Sparking a Reading Revolution: Results of Early LiteracyInterventions in Egypt and Jordan

97

Amber Gove, Aarnout Brombacher, Michelle Ward-BrentThis article examines the effects of early grade reading interventions intwo Arabic-speaking contexts (Egypt and Jordan), developed in part-nership with ministries of education. The interventions relied on simi-lar research bases for improving reading instruction in Arabic. In Egypt,the results of a 166-school pilot led to the national scale-up of the EarlyGrade Reading Program for more than 4 million children in grades 1–3.Informed by Egypt’s experience, a demonstration effort in 43 schoolsled to a national rollout in Jordan’s 2,651 public primary schools andthe creation of a remediation program. We reflect on the conditionsthat influenced the pilot and scale-up outcomes given the commitmentsmade to “inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learn-ing opportunities for all” under the United Nations Sustainable Devel-opment Goals.

7. Improving Early Grade Reading Outcomes: Aprender a Lerin Mozambique

117

Shirley Burchfield, Haiyan Hua, David Noyes, Willem van de WaalThe Government of Mozambique has long struggled to improve thelow reading levels of children in early grades. With funding from theU.S. Agency for International Development in 2012, World Educationcollaborated with the Ministry of Education and Human Developmentto improve reading by developing a research-based reading interventionand testing it in two provinces. This article examines student readingperformance from cohorts of second and third graders before and aftera 1-year intervention compared to that of a control group and identifiesfactors required for successful scale-up.

8. Working Toward a More Literate World: ReadingIntervention Commentary

131

Maureen W. LovettThis issue of New Directions for Child and Adult Development summa-rizes recent and ongoing work to establish evidence-based practicesin early reading instruction and intervention and to improve access toand quality of literacy programs in low- and middle-income countries.The authors describe projects of varying sizes and goals, conductedin multiple sites in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.What is immediately striking is the commitment to documenting theefficacy and effectiveness of these programs using wherever possiblethe methodological standards of intervention science and educationresearch. Often, thousands of children and hundreds of schools havebeen included despite the challenges involved. Data from these projectshave informed plans for future programming in these countries, andresults from large scale-ups have provided insight into the most impor-tant factors necessary for scale-up and sustainability. In this article, Ipresent, in the context of an overview of the sum of these articles, myown thoughts on their importance and implications.

INDEX 143

INTRODUCTION

This article introduces a thematic journal issue on early reading interven-tions in low- and middle-income countries, their effectiveness, and the chal-lenges encountered in implementing, studying, and scaling them up. Theimportance of evidence-based practice, cultural adaptation, documentingthe effectiveness of programs for students, and ensuring teacher educationand support are emphasized. There is a clear need for continued and in-creased research on programs and interventions for children and teachersin low- and middle-income countries.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to beachieved by 2015 (UNESCO, 2015) significantly included universal pri-mary education (goal 2) and promoting gender equality and empow-ering women (goal 3), both essential to achieving goal 1, the eradica-tion of extreme poverty and hunger. Although many countries fell shortof the MDGs, much has been learned about the need for data. Al-though global debates centered on selecting the best specific goals, in-dicators, and metrics for monitoring learning (and reading in particular,as an essential condition for learning), there was less discussion aboutwhat level of improvement could be expected, at what scale and un-der what conditions. Whether under the auspices of a donor-supportedproject or nongovernmental organization in a small number of schools orthrough direct government intervention at national scale, programs varywidely in their level of intensity, investment per student, language of in-struction, and operating conditions. These conditions necessarily influ-ence both expectations and outcomes. In this thematic issue, the authorspresent programs with an emphasis on early reading—literacy instruc-tion in the early grades during which students learn to recognize letters,sound out words, and recognize and understand sentences and simpleparagraphs.

The implementation of evidence-based practice in reading instruc-tion and intervention is a worthy and important goal in the educationof all children. Learning to read requires explicit, systematic instruction(National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) de-livered by well-trained teachers for both student academic success (e.g.,Clotfelter, Ladd, & Vigdor, 2007) and nations’ economic success(Hanushek, 2011). This is especially important for children living inpoverty or disadvantage, attending less well-resourced schools, and/oracquiring and being taught in a language that is not their home lan-guage (August, McCardle, & Shanahan, 2014). Whether taught in theirhome language or an official national language, children learn within their

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, no. 155, Spring 2017 © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). • DOI: 10.1002/cad.20196 9

10 PROGRESS TOWARD A LITERATE WORLD

culture, and instruction must take that into account. For example, al-though story reading may not be a central home activity for somecultures, oral storytelling may, and children can accumulate impor-tant background knowledge and an awareness of story structure fromthis activity. How the family (and community) interacts linguisticallycan form an important and useful component of literacy programs (asnoted in the article by Dowd and colleagues). McCardle and Berninger(2015) attempted to demonstrate that education can be both evi-dence based and culturally sensitive; this collection of articles addssignificantly to that thesis.

More evidence of the effectiveness of research-based, culturally appro-priate educational programs and instructional approaches is needed. Thearticles in this issue offer movement in that direction. For example, Burch-field, Hua, Noyes, and van de Waal illustrate the gathering of data to de-termine the efficacy of programs taking linguistic diversity into account(instruction in a Mozambiquan language and transition to the official Por-tuguese) and factors affecting the feasibility of scaling up those programs;Gove, Korda Poole, and Piper lay out considerations for scaled expansion ofprograms. Although many agencies and organizations fund education pro-grams throughout the world, research data on their effectiveness are notalways easy to find, where they do exist. Fortunately, that is changing, andthis trend must continue if we are to educate the world’s children. The arti-cles in this issue both offer such data and illustrate the challenges, and somesolutions, to gathering it. As access to education is improved, so must accessto books and to high-quality instruction provided by well-trained teachers;cost-effectiveness analyses must take these factors into account in additionto the cost of providing instruction or intervention if sustainability is to beachieved.

In this issue, we bring together several experiences from small- andlarge-scale reading improvement programs to inform (and perhaps temper)expectations surrounding how quickly and easily the needle on readingperformance has been (and can be) moved. Results from programs in sev-eral countries are shared, along with considerations such as dosage, dura-tion, and the enabling environment under which the programs were imple-mented, as well as the challenges faced. These articles also examine the in-terventions in the context of local needs and whether and how they adaptedand drew on local culture, language, and the enabling environment. The is-sue begins with an overarching conceptual framework (laid out by Moore,Gove, & Tietjen) for examining and interpreting results, developed by theeducational coalition that several of the issue authors have established toenable collaboration, results sharing and comparison, and some uniformapproaches. Moore, Gove, and Tietjen set the stage for the articles thatfollow, which document project experiences across Africa (Ethiopia, Bu-rundi, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Senegal), Asia

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT • DOI: 10.1002/cad

INTRODUCTION 11

(Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines), Latin America (Guatemala),and the Middle East (Egypt and Jordan).

Examining these experiences, Lovett offers forward-looking commen-tary on what we can learn from common themes and experiences and whatwe might expect to see in terms of gains and progress made against theambitious new Sustainable Development Goal for education centered onensuring “inclusive and quality education and lifelong learning opportuni-ties for all” (goal 4; United Nations, 2015). The authors in this issue, andtheir funders, believe the best opportunity for making sustained, signifi-cant gains in learning, for all children, requires great, but informed, expec-tations that are emancipatory, transformative, and empowering. They makethe case for informed debate, based on experiences to date as well as flexi-bility in the measurement and tracking of global indicators, all while callingfor programs and interventions to be research based and carefully studied.Research design and conduct in these settings face equally daunting chal-lenges to those of implementing education programs and interventions, yetconducting such research is crucial to the ongoing improvement and suc-cess of these programmatic efforts. These authors call for data and offerconvincing demonstrations of how they have both obtained and used as-sessment data and pilot results to persuade and support the initiation andexpansion of their work (see especially Christina & Vinogradova, and thetwo articles by Gove, Korda Poole, & Piper and Gove, Brombacher, & Ward-Brent on programs in Africa and the Middle East). It is the hope of all ofthe contributors to this issue that it will not only heighten awareness of thechallenges faced in implementing these goals in developing regions but willalso provide useful and valuable information to help guide and improve di-verse global education programs and research, especially in developing re-gions and for children living in poverty or disadvantage in all nations, inthe coming decades. There is a clear need for ongoing research not onlyon the most effective approaches to instruction and intervention for stu-dents but also for teacher, professional development, and ongoing instruc-tional support education (as reflected in the articles by Rubio, de Veliz,Perdomo Mosquera, & Salanic Lopez and by Christina & Vinogradova).Data on the cost-effectiveness of proven practices should also be used toconvince the world of the value of investing in evidence-based educationprograms.

Peggy McCardle

References

August, D., McCardle, P., & Shanahan, T. (2014). Developing literacy in English lan-guage learners: Findings from a review of the experimental research. School Psychol-ogy Review, 14(4), 490–498.

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT • DOI: 10.1002/cad

12 PROGRESS TOWARD A LITERATE WORLD

Clotfelter, C. T., Ladd, H. G., & Vigdor, J. L. (2007). Teacher credentials and studentachievement: Major contributions and future directions—the Dijon papers. Economicsof Education Review, 26(6), 673–682.

Hanushek, E. (2011). The economic value of higher teacher quality. Economics of Edu-cation Review, 30(3), 466–479.

McCardle, P., & Berninger, V. (Eds.). (2015). Narrowing the achievement gap for NativeAmerican students: Paying the educational debt. New York: Routledge.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the Na-tional Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the sci-entific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: Reportsof the subgroups (NIH Publication No. 00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. GovernmentPrinting Office.

UNESCO. (2015). Education and the millennium development goals. Retrieved fromhttp://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/education-for-all/education-and-the-mdgs/

United Nations. (2015). Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg4

PEGGY MCCARDLE, PhD, MPH, is a former branch chief at the child health insti-tute of the National Institutes of Health. She is currently an affiliated researchscientist at the Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, and an independent con-sultant, writing and editing on topics in literacy, learning disabilities, education,and child development.

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT • DOI: 10.1002/cad

Moore, A.-M., Gove, A., & Tietjen, K. (2017). Great expectations: A framework for assessingand understanding key factors affecting student learning of foundational reading skills.In A. Gove, A. Mora, & P. McCardle (Eds.), Progress toward a literate world: Early readinginterventions in low- and middle-income countries. New Directions for Child and AdolescentDevelopment, 155, 13–30.

1

Great Expectations: A Framework forAssessing and Understanding Key FactorsAffecting Student Learning ofFoundational Reading SkillsAudrey-Marie Moore, Amber Gove, Karen Tietjen

Abstract

This article addresses the evolution of the underlying theories of change in globaleducation reform efforts between 1990 and 2015, informed by the shift in fo-cus from access to quality and learning. We review recent data regarding howdifferent types of donor interventions (i.e., structural or pedagogical) have con-tributed to improved reading outcomes and compare effect sizes over a seriesof intervention studies conducted from 2003 to 2015. Against this background,we present a framework for understanding how the intensity, frequency, and fi-delity of the interventions as well as the enabling environments of reform affectthe magnitude and rates at which reading and learning outcomes can be ex-pected to improve. In this, we present the context for the articles that follow,identifying the program design characteristics and types of interventions thatincrease the likelihood of successful expansion of the interventions commonlyreferred to as “scaling-up,” the ability to sustain interventions, and the value(cost effectiveness) of reading programs in low- and middle-income countries.© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, no. 155, Spring 2017 © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). • DOI: 10.1002/cad.20192 13

14 PROGRESS TOWARD A LITERATE WORLD

The Education for All (EFA) movement is a global commitment toprovide high-quality basic education for all children, youth, andadults. At the World Education Forum, which launched EFA in

1999 (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization[UNESCO], 2000), 164 governments pledged to achieve EFA by 2015.Between 2000 and 2011, donors and governments spent an average of$2–3 billion annually to improve educational outcomes for children world-wide (World Bank, 2011). This investment reflects both a widely held beliefthat basic education is a human right and recognition of the centrality of ed-ucation to countries’ economic, social, and political development. Researchsupports this belief, demonstrating that education leads to better familyhealth and nutrition, improved capacity of the poor to participate in thepolitical process, and higher lifetime income (Birdsall, Levine, & Ibrahim,2005; Chapman & Quijada, 2008; Hanushek & Woessman, 2012; Lockheed& Verspoor, 1992; World Bank, 2003).

In recent years, the donor community, including the U.S. Agency forInternational Development (USAID), has focused on improving readingas a way of ensuring that children develop strong foundational skills andcontinue their pursuit of higher levels of education and lifelong learning(USAID, 2011). Despite recent international discussions focused on iden-tifying key indicators for monitoring learning (and reading as an essentialcondition of learning), little discussion has taken place about what level ofimprovement in levels of learning can be expected, at what scale, and underwhat conditions. Although many approaches to reading instruction and itssupport exist, there has been a general consensus in the development com-munity that reading skill acquisition is most effectively brought about byinstruction in languages that the student speaks and understands, aphonics-based approach, and a materials-rich environment.

This article addresses the evolution of the underlying theories ofchange in global education reform efforts between 1990 and 2015. The dis-cussion is informed by the move from focusing on access to focusing onquality and learning. We review recent data regarding how different typesof donor interventions (i.e., structural or pedagogical) have contributed toimproved reading outcomes and compare effect sizes over a series of inter-vention studies conducted from 2003 to 2015. Against this background, wepresent a framework for understanding how the intensity, frequency, andfidelity of the interventions as well as the enabling environments of reformaffect the magnitude and rates at which reading and learning outcomes canbe expected to improve. This article—and those that follow—identifies theprogram design characteristics and types of interventions that increase thelikelihood of successful expansion of the interventions commonly referredto as “scaling-up.” The articles further inform our ability to sustain the in-terventions and the value (cost effectiveness) of reading programs in lowerand middle-income countries.

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT • DOI: 10.1002/cad