How Effective Are Early Grade Reading Interventions? : A Review of the Evidence
It is imperative that students learn to read in the early grades, yet many fail to do so in developing countries. Early grade reading interventions have emerged as a common means to attempt to address this problem. This paper presents a definition...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/289341514995676575/How-effective-are-early-grade-reading-interventions-a-review-of-the-evidence http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29127 |
| Summary: | It is imperative that students learn to
read in the early grades, yet many fail to do so in
developing countries. Early grade reading interventions have
emerged as a common means to attempt to address this
problem. This paper presents a definition of early grade
reading interventions as interventions that employ a
combination of five components: at a minimum, they must
train teachers to teach reading using simplified
instructional techniques and evidence-based curricula. In
addition, they typically include in-class coaching and the
provision of instructional guidelines, instructional
materials, or tools for student assessment. To develop a
better understanding of the effectiveness of the
interventions, the paper summarizes evidence from 18 early
grade reading interventions, occurring across a large
variety of contexts, including four World Bank regions and
three World Bank income groups. The study finds that early
grade reading interventions are consistently effective,
although not infallible. The large majority had highly
significant impacts on at least one reading subtask.
However, only for a few interventions were effect sizes
large enough to equate to more than a year's worth of
schooling or create fluent readers on average. The cost of
implementation varied widely, but some programs were highly
cost-effective. Some programs failed to achieve impact
altogether, although these programs were in the minority. In
short, early grade reading interventions are not a
guaranteed means to improve reading, and they rarely lead to
fluency over a short span of time, but they are a mostly
reliable means to make significant improvements in literacy
over a short period of time. |
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