Landscape Report on Early Grade Literacy Landscape Report on Early Grade Literacy August 26, 2016 Young-Suk Grace Kim,1 Helen N. Boyle,2 Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski,2 and Pooja Nakamura3 1 School of Education, University of California at Irvine 2 College of Education and Learning Systems Institute, Florida State University 3 American Institutes for Research Suggested citation: Kim, Y.-S. G., Boyle, H. N., Zuilkowski, S. S., & Nakamura, P. (2016). Landscape Report on Early Grade Literacy. Washington, D.C.: USAID. Disclaimer The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS — This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo. 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THIRD-PARTY CONTENT — USAID does not necessarily own each component of the content contained within the work. USAID therefore does not warrant that the use of any third party–owned individual component or part contained in the work will not infringe on the rights of those third parties. The risk of claims resulting from such infringement rests solely with you. If you wish to reuse a component of the work, it is your responsibility to determine whether permission is needed for that reuse and to obtain permission from the copyright owner. Examples of components can include, but are not limited to, tables, figures or images. Acknowledgments he authors of this report wish to thank the GRN Communication Coordinator, Newsha N. Learning Systems Institute at Florida State Aboughaddareh, who worked on the graphics for the T University, University Research Co., LLC– report, and Kurt Mulholland, Director of Media at Center for Human Services (URC-CHS), especially URC, for his work in designing the report. Reading within Reach Community of Practice, the “thought leaders” within the international This report was enriched by the careful review and development and early grade reading worlds who feedback offered by our Advisory Board members: consented to be interviewed for this report, the Dr. Daniel Wagner of the University of Pennsylvania, Landscape Report Advisory Board, and USAID. Dr. Catherine Snow of Harvard University, and Ms. Norma A. Evans of Evans and Associates Education The Learning Systems Institute is the leading Consulting. We are grateful for the careful and institution in Florida State University’s work in thorough review of the report in its first and second international education and we are grateful for its draft stages. leadership and contractual management services. We also want to thank Kaitlyn Hicks and Alexandra We also thank the 15 “thought leaders” from various Rosenbaum for their help with identifying and parts of the international development/early grade compiling studies and documents. Gratitude is also reading community for taking the time to participate due to Dr. Marion Fesmire who contributed in the in interviews drawing on knowledge from their initial stage of the work. hands-on experience in the field. These interviews were informative and in several cases led us to URC-CHS has provided invaluable support as the additional reports and literature to examine. contracting organization for this report with strong leadership and unceasing advocacy for this work. Finally, we thank USAID, in particular, Dr. Penelope In particular, we thank Sakil Malik, Community Bender, Dr. Marcia Davidson, and Ms. Rebecca of Practice Director, for his skillful management Rhodes, for their critical and constructive feedback of this award. We are also grateful to Dr. Kim at each stage of the process. Foulds, GRN’s Research Manager, Mary Ciambrone, iii Table of Contents Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................... iii Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 3 Section A. Overview ...................................................................................................................... 3 Section B. Methods and levels of evidence .....................................................................................4 Section C. Situational and constraining factors to keep in mind ......................................................6 Section D. Organization of the report .............................................................................................6 Chapter 2. Key areas to successfully promote improved early grade literacy skills: Overview ................8 Section A. A framework for understanding reading development ......................................................8 Section B. Cross-cutting factors in literacy instruction ....................................................................9 Chapter 3. Key areas to successfully promote improved early grade literacy skills: Content ................. 17 Section A. Emergent literacy skills: Foundations for word reading and spelling ................................ 17 Section B. Oral language skills: Foundations for reading comprehension ......................................... 25 Section C. Reading fluency: Foundation for reading comprehension ................................................ 30 Section D. Reading comprehension ................................................................................................33 Section E. Writing for meaning .................................................................................................... 37 Chapter 4. Key factors and actors responsible for improving early grade literacy skills in developing country contexts ........................................................................................................ 43 Section A. Promoting literacy in multilingual environments .......................................................... 43 Section B. Teacher knowledge and teacher education ..................................................................... 49 Section C. Parental and community engagement ........................................................................... 57 Chapter 5. Long-run considerations of literacy programs: Costs, financing, scaling up, and sustainability............................................................................................................................ 59 Chapter 6. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................61 References ...................................................................................................................................... 64 v vi Executive Summary he goal of this landscape report is to review “Once you learn to read, you and summarize available empirical evidence Ton early grade literacy acquisition and will be forever free.” instruction in developing countries. To achieve this goal, papers with empirical data were searched, — Frederick Douglass identified, screened, and reviewed on topics that promote the higher-order, long-term goals of literacy included student-level factors (e.g., emergent literacy, acquisition and instruction—reading comprehension oral language), larger contextual factors within and writing (written composition). which the student is embedded (e.g., home literacy environment, language of instruction, and larger Some directions for the future include a focus on system issues such as teacher education), and long- long-term perspectives and efforts. Although the run considerations (e.g., sustainability, costs, and need to improve students' literacy skills is dire scaling up). The available empirical evidence was, and immediate, changing behavior (e.g., teachers’ then, rated by topic as strong, moderate, emerging instructional practices; student’s learning) takes or limited. The vast majority of studies reviewed a long time (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005) and were project-based work with a comprehensive, therefore, requires sustained efforts. Furthermore, multicomponent approach, incorporating the 5Ts— reading comprehension and writing are high-order teaching, time, texts, tongue, and test. The Big 5 skills identified in the National Reading Panel Table 1. Levels of evidence for the various areas Report (National Institute of Child Health and reviewed in the this report Human Development [NICHD], 2000)—phonological awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, Topic