1. Early grade reading in South Africa Lessons from a large scale intervention 1 October 2016 Stephen Taylor

2. The diagnosis
Pre-PIRLS 2011: 58% of grade 4 children could not read for meaning in any language Evidence overwhelming PIRLS, SACMEQ, ANA

3. But how to affect change on scale?
Doesn’t always follow directly from the diagnosis
e.g. parent involvement catch 22
Binding constraints
Dropping resources
We know how to systematically teach reading
But instructional practices are far from it in many schools
Changing ingrained behaviours on scale

4. A Theory of Change
Think about textbooks

5. A Theory of Change Think about textbooks Or teacher training:
(Ben Piper)

6. Evaluation and Research for Policy
Qualitative and quantitative methods interpret each other.
Qualitative research:
when, where, how and why questions
Hypothesis generating;
Types of situations
requires fine-grained analysis
small scale
expert fieldworkers

7. Evaluation and Research for Policy
Qualitative and quantitative methods interpret each other.
Quantitative research:
Policy maker must know the average effect
Compare 30% impact on 10% of targeted schools to 10% impact on 60% of targeted schools
Train 1 way versus another way
Cost-effectiveness:
R1000 per learner to impact on 70% of target group vs R500 to impact 20% of target group

8. DBE research agenda
What interventions (built on evidence from elsewhere) make an impact in the SA context?
Replicable costs and human capacity
For some level of “scale”
What differences exist in the “pre-reading abilities” of children at the start of school?
Girls and boys
Home characteristics
Urban and rural schools
How do reading inequalities evolve over time?
What levels of reading fluency in grades 1 and 2 are required for successful learning in later grades?

9. Example of a recent evaluation
Grade 4 learners not ready for ENG as LOLT
Therefore FP interventions in HL & EFAL

10. Example of a recent evaluation

12. Who is involved? Initiated and driven by DBE Largely donor funded
ZENEX FOUNDATION, Anglo American, DPME in Presidency, UNICEF, 3ie, NW PED
Steering Committee
DBE, Treasury, DPME, PEDs, Donors
Research Team
WITS, Stellenbosch, HSRC, Georgetown University

13. EGRS 1 Project design Goal: To improve HL literacy (Setswana)
230 schools in the North West:
Quintile 1-3 schools using Setswana as LOLT
Project duration is 2 years: following Grade 1 cohort (2015) into Grade 2 (2016)
We administer 3 interventions and evaluate their impact relative to a valid control group
Baseline survey Jan/Feb 2015;
midline Nov 2015;
endline Nov 2016
Survey includes testing learners, parent questionnaire, teacher questionnaire, principal questionnaire

14. Description of Interventions
230 schools in North West

15. Description of Interventions
230 schools in North West
Per learner costs
Triple cocktail: Expensive for national roll-out, but R7m – R8m for one grade in 100 priority schools.

17. Interesting to note from baseline
An ageing teacher population
Girls substantially outperform boys at the start of school
Parent characteristics predict school readiness (including taking responsibility for child’s education)

18. Main Results by end of Grade 1 (3 terms of intervention)
Pedagogical interventions: About a quarter of a year of learning
Parent involvement:
Negligible average effect
Possibly an effect for those who attend
Main Results by end of Grade 1 (3 terms of intervention)

19. Sub-group effects
Intervention 3 appears to have had an impact amongst the strongest learners
More involved parents attended?
The positive impact for interventions 1 and 2 is clearest for boys
Helps boys catch up to girls?

20. Sub-group effects Large impact in urban schools
Possibly zero impact in rural schools
Clear impact in monograde schools
Possibly zero impact in multi-grade schools
Depends on teacher absenteeism
Impact of all 3 interventions higher amongst teachers less commonly absent

21. Impacts on intermediate outcomes
Intervention 2 teachers more frequently conducted individualized reading assessments
Increased reading resources evident in classrooms
especially of Setswana posters.
More exercises completed
of all types (including drawing pictures)
of written exercises
and full sentence writing exercises

22. Forthcoming Endline testing Oct/Nov 2016
Qualitative survey (60 schools) – October
Case studies
Extension of Interventions 1 and 2 in grade 3 in 2017
Future data collection
Persistence of impacts
Inform reading norms