Global Partnership for Education WP Series on Learning

11 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10986/16245

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Literacy for All in 100 Days? A Research-based Strategy for Fast Progress in Low-income Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05-30) Abadzi, Helen
In low-income countries many students are marginalized very early and remain illiterate. In grades 1-3 they attend rarely, though they may officially drop out in grade 4. Many others graduate from primary school without having learned letter values. The worrisome outcomes, despite much donor investment in low-income countries, have prompted scrutiny of the methods, and textbooks used to make students literate. This document offers insights from cognitive neuroscience and evidence suggesting that students can be taught basic literacy within the first semester of grade 1, if taught in consistently spelled languages. Teaching students at risk of dropout to read as early as possible enhances equity. However, the reading methods used in many countries are complex and hard for teachers to execute. They pertain to high-income countries and to certain western European languages. English but also French, Portuguese, and Dutch have complex spelling systems. English in particular requires three years of learning time. (French requires about two). Reading instruction for English is expensive and complex. Lists of whole words must be learned, vocabulary and early training in predictions are needed in order to make sense of words that cannot be sounded out. Learning must be started at kindergarten, parents must help at home, and many weaker students require remedial instruction. Since English is an official language in many countries, the travails of learning to read in this language have been considered the normal fate of reading. Overall, reading methods must be resilient to the vicissitudes of implementation. Many activities work well in higher-income countries or small pilots, but at scale-up they sink. Governments and donors should train up to existing capacity, rather than try to raise capacity to the requirements of complex methods.
Raising Literacy from 20 Percent to 80 Percent? A Science-Based Strategy for GPE Partner Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05-30) Abadzi, Helen
Governments and donors have been working hard to develop efficient learning programs and resolve the learning crisis. Scientific lessons have already been implemented in a few countries. Global Partnership for Education (GPE) gave technical advice to Cambodia and the Gambia on reading (also on math); the reading pilots resulted in very satisfactory outcomes and expressions of appreciation by governments. Not surprisingly, other GPE partner countries have directly requested technical advice. With sharp messages and close coordination, the current mountain of problems can be reduced to a molehill in five years. Basic reading can be taught efficiently and quickly, by the middle of grade one. If such an outcome seems unbelievable, it is only because reading is taught through models tailor-made for certain western European languages. Students are to learn basic reading in local languages within the first 100 days of grade one. At the same time, they will learn the official language orally. In grade two they will receive a bridging course to transition eventually to the formal language. The many older illiterate students are to be remediated through the same 100-day program ('literate school in 100 days') and similarly receive a bridging course to the official language. One issue that is often voiced by government officials is that language of instruction for early grade reading is desirable, but students should exit early and not spend years studying in a local language. Given the need for basic literacy, it is certainly possible to follow the policy option that government's desire. In higher-income countries, students get exposed to print before school, so they progress fast in automaticity and text interpretation. Commensurately, the poor are expected to progress quickly into meaning and content. The early learning failure in low income countries is due to missing 'low level' building-block skills.
Effective Teacher Training in Low-Income Countries: The Power of Observational Learning Research
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-11-01) Abadzi, Helen
The Education for All (EFA) initiative depends on students being taught by suitably and sufficiently trained teachers. But time-on-task studies conducted in low-income countries show that relatively little time is being spent on instruction, including the critical teaching of reading. Teachers may be absent often and may avoid teaching when in school (Abadzi 2007). They may engage with the few students who can do the work, neglecting the rest (Llambiri 2006, Abadzi and Llambiri 2011). They may fail to use textbooks even when they exist and spend class time copying on the blackboard. The same issues affect supervisors and principals (Abadzi 2006). As a result, students may graduate or drop out illiterate. The investments in teacher training are potentially valuable, but need to be linked to results. Thus far evidence is limited. Preservice training often lasts 6-9 months compared to 3-4 years in higher-income countries and may be insufficient to remedy students' academic deficits or teach them how to teach. The poor results have disappointed governments and donors. The persistent teacher training problems worldwide make it imperative to seek new means for changing behaviors, particularly for poorly paid teachers with limited education. This must be done relatively quickly and efficiently so that teachers can impart basic skills to their students. Since feasible educational methods seem to have been exhausted, it is useful to look for solutions in the field that studies behavior. Even for better educated teachers in lower-income countries, the capacity for formulating and solving complex problems such as those presented in teaching real classrooms may be limited compared to some 'ideal' model (Feldon 2007).
The Foundations of Numerical and Mathematical Abilities: A Literature Review
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04-08) Ansari, Daniel
The processing of numerical information is a dominant feature of everyday life. Whether it is in the context of financial transactions, such as shopping for groceries or in gauging how many people are in a room, we are constantly using numerical information to guide our behavior and make decisions. While there has been much more attention placed on literacy and its importance for life success, there is clear evidence to suggest that basic numerical and mathematical skills play a critical role in determining an individual's life success. Furthermore, there is abundant evidence that low numeracy skills are associated with substantial costs to society at large (Butterworth, Varma, and Laurillard; Bynner and Parsons, 1997; Duncan et al., 2007). In view of this, a better understanding of how the ability to process numerical information develops could lead to improvements in how these skills are taught and used by individuals to improve their lives across the globe. As an extension of this, improving numerical skills among individuals will have benefits for society at large as it will lead to a stronger working force and thus measurable economic improvements. The focus of the review will be on the foundations of number processing abilities upon which higher-level abilities, such as mental arithmetic are built. In this way, the literature review does not provide a comprehensive overview of the development of numerical and mathematical skills, but rather explore the foundational systems underlying numerical and mathematical abilities. By doing so the review aims to identify key variables that characterize foundational competencies of numerical abilities that can be used in the context of educational assessments and become targets for educational interventions. It is a central contention of the present review that in order to improve the early acquisition of numerical competencies, a focus on foundational systems is necessary. If the foundations are well set then the system can develop optimally.
Reading Fluency Measurements in EFA FTI Partner Countries: Outcomes and Improvement Prospects
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-09) Abadzi, Helen
Students in lower-income countries often acquire limited literacy in school and often drop out illiterate. For those who stay, the problem is not detected until it is too late to intervene. Oral reading fluency tests given in the early grades can quickly and inexpensively assess student literacy. For this reason, one-minute reading studies have been popular. A search carried out in early 2010 showed that over 50 fluency studies have been conducted in various countries, and that norms have been established in the U.S., Mexico, and Chile. The studies often reported data in ways that were not easily comparable, and few had collected nationally representative data. However, the findings consistently showed very limited achievement. A multi-country study matching reading and instructional time data showed that the deficits are largely due to limited reading practice. The findings also suggest that few governments have taken action to improve reading outcomes on the basis of test scores. However, a number of pilot reading programs that emphasized phonics and practice were financed by donors and implemented by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). These brought about substantial improvements within a few months. Their success suggests that it is eminently feasible to raise student outcomes significantly through evidence based reading methods. Overall, the oral reading fluency tests have shown good psychometric properties, although reading achievement typically shows much variability within classes and sampling procedures could improve. Cross-linguistic comparability is rough and approximate, but overall it is possible to monitor reading outcomes across time and countries.
Learning Essentials for International Education: A Compendium of Summaries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-03-23) Abadzi, Helen
The sound of children's voices reciting in unison could be heard from afar, as our mission approached a school in rural Cambodia. Inside a second-grade classroom, students took turns at the blackboard. One pointed with a stick at a list of words written by the teacher, while the rest recited. A colleague approached, wrote on the blackboard the same words in a different order, and asked the children to read. Suddenly, there was silence. Most kids had merely memorized the sequence of the words and could not even identify single letters. This scene is frequent. In the poorer schools of low-income countries, many students remain illiterate for years, until they finally drop out. With some care, the process is observable. Typically the teacher writes on the board some letters or words and asks students to repeat them. The letters may be scribbled, the children often sit at a distance, textbooks may be insufficient, and children may not have anyone at home to help them read. But they do repeat the words in unison, getting cues from a few knowledgeable classmates. The teachers stand by the blackboard, address students at large, and call on the few who perform well. How come this issue has not attracted attention? One reason is that in the middle-class schools of capitals students perform much better. Soon after our rural observations, we observed second graders in a middleclass school of Pnom Penh fluently handling the extremely complex Khmer script. However, the schools of the poor have less time for their students. There is teacher absenteeism, a lack of textbooks to take home, parental inability to make up for school weaknesses, no specific curricular time for reading. The result has been chronic illiteracy, high dropout and high repetition rates. To reduce repetition and maximize enrollments, some donors advise governments to promote students automatically.
Teaching Mathematics Effectively to Primary Students in Developing Countries: Insights from Neuroscience and Psychology of Mathematics
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-12-30) Soendergaard, Bettina Dahl; Cachaper, Cecile
This paper uses research from neuroscience and the psychology of mathematics to arrive at useful recommendations for teaching mathematics at primary level to poor students in developing countries. The enrollment rates of the poorer students have improved tremendously in the last decade. And the global Net Enrollment Ratio (NER) has improved since 2001 from 83.2 percent to 90-95 percent except in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Making teaching of math and other subjects efficient for the poor in developing countries is a great challenge, particularly in south Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Many developing countries have explored new means of teaching math and other subjects. Mongolia changed its mathematics education, aiming to build a new set of priorities and practices, given the abandonment of earlier traditions. Similar to international trends of the time, South Africa in the 1990s extensively applied the constructivist learning philosophy which relied on exploration and discovery, with little emphasis on memorization, drill, In conformity with a belief that teachers could develop their own learning programs, there was virtual absence of a national or provincial syllabus or textbooks. Students were expected to develop their own methods for arithmetic operations, but most found it impossible to progress on their own from counting to actual calculating. This study integrates pertinent research from neuroscience and the psychology of mathematics to arrive at recommendations for curricular and efficient means of mathematics instruction particularly for developing countries and poor students at primary level. Specifically, the latest research in neuroscience, cognitive science, and discussions of national benchmarks for primary school mathematics learning, form the basis of our recommendations. These recommendations have a reasonable chance of working in the situational contexts of developing countries, with their traditions and resources.