End of Second Grade Reading Assessment of USAID’s Read Project: Academic Year 2016-2017

Abstract

End of Second Grade study consisted of a short evaluation to test four main literacy subskills (letter knowledge, correct words per minute, fluency, and reading comprehension) on a representative sample of Project-READ students. This study responds to Project READ’S Indicator 1.3: “Reporting a proportion of students who by the end of 2nd grade of primary schooling demonstrate that they can read fluently and understand the meaning of grade leveled texts”. Participants showed 50% accuracy on letter knowledge, 21.49 correct words per minute on isolated text, 24.99 correct words per minute on connected text, and 45% accuracy on reading comprehension. While it is not recommended to make inferential analyses between 2016 and 2017 cohorts, there are substantial improvements in some basic reading skills previously identified as deficient in baseline evaluation, such as letter knowledge and reading comprehension. In addition, project read has decreased the percentage of non-readers. Despite these improvements, children are still reading below benchmark levels that are generally accepted by international testing standards. It should be noted, however, that given the broad challenges faced by the project, such as MoE reluctance to implement all of Project Read’s components, we cannot assess the full scope of Project Read’s potential benefits. Considering that full implementation has not taken place due to MoE restrictions, we make these additional recommendations that have shown improvements in other reading programs: (1) Conduct a qualitative study with intervention stakeholders to deepen in limitations of implementation; (2) To distribute and create new evidence based practice materials as well as teacher training.