Models of instruction in Primary Schools – from reading to literacy

Oxford UKFIET Conference, September 2013

Marcia Davidson, Cambridge Education

Jenny Hobbs, Concern Worldwide

Key Questions

What is the simplest yet most powerful approach to teaching children how to read?

Are quality materials as important (or nearly as important) as quality teaching?

How does a child interact with the simple view of reading?

Q 1: The Simple View of Reading: What it means and why it is so important

DEFINITION: The Simple View of Reading consists of 2 components: decoding and linguistic comprehension. Both have equal value in learning to read and can be represented using a multiplicative representation:

Reading Comprehension = decoding X linguistic comprehension

perfect decoding skill and poor linguistic comprehension = poor reading comprehension

perfect linguistic comprehension and no decoding skill = NO reading comprehension

Poor linguistic comprehension and poor decoding skill = poor reading comprehension

Why the Simple View?

When resources are limited and teachers have minimal to no background in how to teach reading, the Simple View provides a useful and powerful framework.

The Simple View addresses the fundamental issues in early reading acquisition in a clear and useful way. It teaches individuals

1. How to read (decode) words, and

2. How to understand the meaning of the words read

Evidence that the Simple View works

Liberia EGRA Plus Pilot Study (RTI International)

Room to Read and the Simple View:Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal

8

TABLE 1. Snapshot Assessment Results*

RWI Project Schools Non-RWI Schools

Students Mean Standard Deviation Students Mean

Standard Deviation

Reading Fluency (words per minute)

Grade 1 299 36.68 23.18 300 10.18 15.16 Grade 2 301 55.81 22.93 300 23.70 22.60

Reading Comprehension (questions answered correctly)

Grade 1 299 2.80 1.50 298 0.67 1.01 Grade 2 301 3.49 1.46 300 1.41 1.57

*Differences between project and control school students are statistically significant (p < .001).

Bangladesh Grades 1-2

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TABLE 1. Snapshot Assessment Results for Grade 1*

RWI Schools Non-RWI Schools

Assessment Students Mean Standard Deviation Students Mean

Standard Deviation

Effect Size**

Letter sound knowledge (letters per minute) 668 29.64 19.82 513 10.67 14.34 1.32

Unfamiliar word reading (words per minute) 669 9.00 8.60 513 2.19 4.94 1.38

Passage reading fluency (words per minute) 667 10.37 11.36 514 2.82 6.85 1.10

Reading comprehension #1 (questions answered correctly) 669 0.22 0.62 514 0.05 0.29 0.58 Passage reading accuracy - untimed (words read correctly) 669 24.11 19.99 514 7.63 14.66 1.12

Reading comprehension #2 (questions answered correctly) 669 1.05 1.24 514 0.47 0.93 0.62

Listening comprehension (questions answered correctly) 669 1.59 1.04 514 1.41 1.04 0.17

Sentence dictation (words written correctly) 669 1.87 1.77 514 0.74 1.28 0.88

Sri Lanka Tamil Program Grade 1

40%

34%

27%

Grade 2 Remedial Pretest (069BS)

Simple word

word

sentence

3%

35%62%

Grade 3 Remedial Post test (069)

Letter level

Word level

Sentence level

20%

33%

48%

Grade 3 Remedial Pretest (069BS)

Simple word

word

sentence

6%

46%

47%

Grade 2 Remedial Post test 069

Letter level

Word level

Sentence level

The Simple View approach + Quality Materials

Q 2: A recent report from the director of the Brown Center on Education

Policy at the BrookingsInstitution

There is strong evidence that the choice of instructional materials has large effects on student learning—effects that rival in size those that are associated with differences in teacher effectiveness. (Chingos & Whitehurst, 2012)

Implications?

How can we ensure that there are high quality materials for teachers to use to

support literacy development in all education levels?

Next Steps1. Develop a universal systematic approach that can be used

in many contexts and countries:

a) by working with Ministries of Education to determine ACTUAL reading levels of students across grades and create an incremental set of standards that can increase over time (international readability method may be possible);

b) to level textbooks so that they are both considerate and accessible to students in all grades in multiple languages;

c) to create decodable storybooks that link to the scope and sequence of phonics instruction (recommend local languages) to get kids reading quickly;

d) to build an international digital library of texts and stories in multiple languages and contexts so that adequate high quality learning materials are available to all.

e) and work with international print/publishing experts to improve quality and reduce costs for publishing and printing materials locally whenever possible.

From simplicity to complexity: how does a child interact with the simple view of reading?

The child as…..a participant

Attendance Rates (School Records) Attendance Rates (Head Count)

Male Female Total Male Female Total

Class 1 78.6% 80.2% 79.4% Class 1 72.2% 58.8% 65.5%

Class 2 88.6% 89.8% 89.2% Class 2 57.1% 54.5% 55.8%

Class 3 95.1% 89.5% 92.3% Class 3 61.4% 66.1% 63.8%

Class 4 88.8% 77.6% 83.2% Class 4 40.0% 49.9% 45.0%

Class 5 105.2% 81.1% 93.1% Class 5 58.2% 44.9% 51.6%

Class 6 84.0% 83.6% 83.8% Class 6 87.1% 96.0% 91.5%

Total 91.2% 85.9% 88.6% Total 61.7% 61.3% 61.5%

The child…with language skills

questioning

Negotiation

Imagination

Decision-making

Inference

Assertive communication

Hannah Mavuto, Bwangu Primary School, Malawi (2012)

Safe spaces for peer interaction

The child…in a context of violence

29% of students, and 36% of teachers say it is sometimes a girl’s fault if a student of teacher

touches her private parts (36% of females; 23% of males)

40% of students (42% of females; 36% of males) and 34% of teachers believe it is not ok for a

girl to refuse to have sex with a boyfriend

67% of students report some form of severe punishment by a teacher in the past 12

months (59% of females; 74% of males)

66% of teachers report having administered a severe form of punishment in the past 12

months

46% of students have experienced an incident of sexual violence in the past 12 months,

whether verbal or physical (44% of females; 48% of males)

33% of teachers, and 28% of students (33% of females; 23% of males) believe that boys

and girls are of equal intelligence

Thank you. Any questions?

Naomi Davis, Jereh O.J. Kpui, Joe P. Kpui, Robertlyn N. Davis, Abraham Joe – students at St. John River Elementary School, Grand Bassa, Liberia (2010)

Jenny.Hobbs@concern.netMarcia.Davidson@camb-ed-us.com