Improving Reading Instruction and Students' Reading Skills in the Early Grades: Evidence From a Randomized Evaluation in Haiti. Issue 1 (17th February 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Guzmán, Juan Carlos; Schuenke-Lucien, Kate; D'Agostino, Anthony J.; Berends, Mark; Elliot, Andrew J.
• Is Part Of: Reading research quarterly. Volume 56:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 173
• Page End: 193
• Publication Date: 2020-02-17
• Subjects: Instructional strategies; methods and materials -- Phonics; phonemic awareness; phonological awareness -- Decoding -- Family literacy -- Fluency -- Development Studies / Community Development -- Instructional Intervention -- Program Evaluation -- Experimental/Quasi‐experimental -- Hierarchical Modeling -- ANOVAs -- 2‐Childhood; Reading -- Periodicals; Reading -- Research -- Periodicals; Lecture -- Périodiques; Lecture -- Recherche -- Périodiques; 428.4
• DOI: 10.1002/rrq.297
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0034-0553

Abstract

Abstract: In Haiti, 49% of students cannot read a single word in Creole by the time they start grade 3, which is reflective of a broader learning crisis in low‐income and fragile contexts. Read to Learn, an early‐grade literacy intervention, was implemented and evaluated from fall 2014 through spring 2016 with the aim of improving students' reading skills. Students were given learning materials in their mother tongue, teachers were provided with training and instructional coaching, and various supports for program implementation were established. In a randomized evaluation, the authors assessed students' reading skills at the beginning of grade 1 and at the end of grades 1 and 2 in treatment and control schools. The authors estimated the impact of the program at the end of grades 1 and 2 with a hierarchical linear model and found positive effects on emergent reading skills and oral reading fluency, with effect sizes ranging between 0.19 and 0.79. The results of this study are an important contribution to knowledge about what works to improve literacy outcomes for students in Haiti and other fragile contexts.