Publication: Raising Literacy from 20 Percent to 80 Percent? A Science-Based Strategy for GPE Partner Countries
Loading...
Files in English
428 downloads
108 downloads
82 downloads
35 downloads
Date
2013-05-30
ISSN
Published
2013-05-30
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
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.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Abadzi, Helen. 2013. Raising Literacy from 20 Percent to 80 Percent? A Science-Based Strategy for GPE Partner Countries. Global Partnership for Education (GPE)
working paper series on learning;no. 8. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/16247 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Efficient Learning for the Poor : Insights from the Frontier of Cognitive Neuroscience(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2006)This book integrates research into applications that extend from preschool brain development to the memory of adult educators. In layman's terms, it provides explanations and answers to questions such as: Why do children have to read fast before they can understand what they read? How do health, nutrition, and stimulation influence brain development? Why should students learn basic skills in their maternal language? Is there such a thing as an untrained teacher? What signs in a classroom show whether students are getting a quality education? How must information be presented in class so that students can retain it and use it? What training techniques are most likely to help staff put their learning into use? This book is intended for use by policymakers, donor agency staff, teacher trainers, supervisors, and inspectors, as well as university professors and students.Publication Learning Essentials for International Education(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-03-23)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.Publication Literacy for All in 100 Days? A Research-based Strategy for Fast Progress in Low-income Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05-30)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.Publication Reading Fluency Measurements in EFA FTI Partner Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-09)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.Publication Visual and Linguistic Factors in Literacy Acquisition : Instructional Implications for Beginning Readers in Low-income Countries(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013)Improving the quality of literacy teaching may require intervening at different levels, for example, encouraging school attendance and optimizing textbook format and teaching methods. Reading is a complex task involving perceptual, motor, linguistic, phonological, and memory components, each of which has a crucial role in determining reading rate. High poverty rates continue to have a negative impact on human resource development and education quality in Africa, further complicating the ability of most countries to reach the Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Moreover, Africa and Asia are hosts to most of the world's multilingual countries, in which textbook availability in major indigenous languages is sorely lacking. Therefore, it is important to take all possible steps to maximize the effectiveness of teaching interventions. In parallel, also the quality of textbooks is a crucial factor for quality education, especially in developing countries. It is important to dispose of well-written and well-designed textbooks, because the quality of textbook can be an important predictor of student learning and can contribute to the effective use of instructional time and classroom teaching. This review examines the evidence regarding variables influencing acquisition of decoding and comprehension reading skills. One important caveat is in order. While the educational, psychological and neuroscience literature on reading is extensive, it largely depends upon studies on English speaking individuals. The first part of the review focuses on studies of visual psychophysics and examines the visual limitations affecting reading and its development. The second part of the review draws on the psychological and neuroscience literature to examine the role of several variables influencing reading acquisition, such as letter knowledge, teaching method, teacher's competence, orthographic consistency.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Business Ready 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03)Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.Publication The Journey Ahead(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31)The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.Publication Services Unbound(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-09)Services are a new force for innovation, trade, and growth in East Asia and Pacific. The dramatic diffusion of digital technologies and partial policy reforms in services--from finance, communication, and transport to retail, health, and education--is transforming these economies. The result is higher productivity and changing jobs in the services sector, as well as in the manufacturing sectors that use these services. A region that has thrived through openness to trade and investment in manufacturing still maintains innovation-inhibiting barriers to entry and competition in key services sectors. 'Services Unbound: Digital Technologies and Policy Reform in East Asia and Pacific' makes the case for deeper domestic reforms and greater international cooperation to unleash a virtuous cycle of increased economic opportunity and enhanced human capacity that would power development in the region.Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-11)After several years of negative shocks, global growth is expected to hold steady in 2024 and then edge up in the next couple of years, in part aided by cautious monetary policy easing as inflation gradually declines. However, economic prospects are envisaged to remain tepid, especially in the most vulnerable countries. Risks to the outlook, while more balanced, are still tilted to the downside, including the possibility of escalating geopolitical tensions, further trade fragmentation, and higher-for-longer interest rates. Natural disasters related to climate change could also hinder activity. Subdued growth prospects across many emerging market and developing economies and continued risks underscore the need for decisive policy action at the global and national levels. Global Economic Prospects is a World Bank Group Flagship Report that examines global economic developments and prospects, with a special focus on emerging market and developing economies, on a semiannual basis (in January and June). Each edition includes analytical pieces on topical policy challenges faced by these economies.Publication World Bank Annual Report 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-25)This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.