The Early Grade Reading program in Ghana, implemented under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Partnership for Education Learning Activity, was evaluated with a quasi-experimental impact evaluation between 2017 and 2019. This data asset contains the three waves of data collected in Ghana during this time period.

The Tusome Early Grade Reading Program involves a national effort in Kenya to scale up a proven model for improved results in early grade literacy. Based on positive findings during a rigorous impact evaluation of a pilot test of this intervention, the Government of Kenya (GOK) asked USAID/Kenya to assist with the nationwide rollout of an activity to improve reading skills and increase the capacity of educators and the GOK to deliver and administer early grade reading (EGR) programs modeled on the pilot activity’s success. Tusome, which means “Let’s Read” in Kiswahili, targeted 28,000 formal and nonformal public and low-cost private primary schools in the 47 counties in Kenya (nationwide). About 1,000 of these are informal schools that exist mostly in urban “slums,” while the vast majority of the remaining 27,000 schools are in rural areas. Roughly 5.4 million children who entered primary school between 2014 and 2017 are expected to benefit from this scaling-up initiative. Intermediate beneficiaries include: 1) approximately 60,000 class 1 and 2 teachers, 2) 28,000 primary school head teachers, 3) 1,052 Teacher Advisory Center (TAC) tutors, plus “coaches” for nonformal schools and 4) 300 senior education personnel. Tusome also assisted the GOK at the technical and policy levels to sustainably improve reading skills beyond the span of the activity.

The Malawi Early Grade Reading Activity (MEGRA) is a multifaceted educational development approach intended to enable sustained literacy among children, promote a literate community, and help the country increase economic growth and reduce poverty. The USAID/Malawi funded program was implemented starting August of 2013, by RTI (Research Triangle Institute) International. The MEGRA educational program was implemented alongside a Feed the Future project called Integrating Nutrition in Value Chains (INVC) and a Global Health Initiative project called Support for Service Delivery Integration (SSDI), both of which were also expected to affect the success of learners in school. Through this interconnected strategy, USAID/Malawi aimed to have a greater impact on outcomes of interest (such as learning reading scores) than would otherwise be possible through one project alone. The key elements of the MEGRA reading intervention involved: • Conduct teacher training, including practicums • Provide scripted lesson plans to teachers • Provide in-service teacher support and mentoring (or coaching) • Provide rewards for high-performing teachers and schools • Develop and distribute books, story cards, letter cards, and bookshelves • Organize reading fairs and other events to engage parents, caregivers, and the community in learner learning • Invite parents to participate in their learners’ classrooms and/or become engaged in extracurricular activities • Ensure a supportive policy environment by attending the Basic Education Technical Working Group and writing Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) to gain necessary Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology(MoEST) support and buy-in • Facilitate the extension of school instructional time In order to test possible complementary or multiplier effects of the MEGRA reading intervention and the INVC and SSDI activities, all three interventions were implemented in and evaluated for four distinct treatment levels: • Treatment Level 1: Three focus districts (Balaka, Machinga, and Lilongwe Rural) that provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of a fully-integrated development approach with multiple activities across sectors, including MEGRA, INVC, and SSDI, on early grade reading outcomes. • Treatment Level 2: The district (Salima) where MEGRA overlaps with only the SSDI intervention. This serves as a test ground for the hypothesis that synergies between education and health initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 3: The district (Ntcheu) where MEGRA overlaps with only the INVC intervention. This serves as a test ground for the development hypothesis that synergies between education and agricultural livelihood and nutrition initiatives catalyze changes that are greater than the sum of their parts. • Treatment Level 4: Five districts (Blantyre Rural, Mzimba North, Ntchisi, Thyolo, and Zomba Rural) that only receive the MEGRA initiative. These districts are used to test the MEGRA theory of change that education support leads to improved literacy and general education outcomes. MEGRA was implemented at the zonal level, at baseline in 2013, where zones were randomly selected in each of the four levels to implement the MEGRA intervention (taking into account areas where INVC and SSDI were already working). However, since INVC and SSDI were not randomly assigned at baseline, the evaluation can only be able to determine whether EGRA is better than no EGRA and whether EGRA plus INVC and SSDI is better than no treatment. While MEGRA expected to include both treatment and comparison schools in each district at each level, at baseline, it was unable to because the SSDI and INVC activities were already underway. As such, the program found that in the Level 2 district, Salima, it was impossible to select comparison zones that were not already contaminated with the SSDI intervention because SSDI was already work

The overall aim of the USAID/SA basic education program is to improve primary grade reading outcomes by building teacher effectiveness and strengthening classroom and school management. This is being accomplished through support to innovative, local interventions that have a demonstrated capacity for scale-up. The main USAID/SA program is the School Capacity and Innovation Program (SCIP), which also leverages significant private sector resources, amplifying the impact of USAID’s investment in the South African education system. SCIP is co-funded by The ELMA Foundation and J.P. Morgan and designed in collaboration with the South African Department of Basic Education. SCIP supports local South African models or interventions that work directly with teachers and school management teams in innovative ways in order to improve their practice as instructional leaders and managers. SCIP is aligned to the USAID Global Education Strategy (2011–2015) which supports interventions to improve learning outcomes with a focus on primary grade reading as a measure of performance. In addition to seeking initiatives that demonstrate innovation and impact, sustainability and scalability are key components of the SCIP program. The Strengthening Teaching of Early Language and Literacy (STELLAR) Program improves the language and literacy skills of Grade R children from disadvantaged communities in South Africa by training and supporting Grade R teachers. Grade R (also called the Reception Year) is the year of schooling before Grade 1.

The overall aim of the USAID/SA basic education program is to improve primary grade reading outcomes by building teacher effectiveness and strengthening classroom and school management. This is being accomplished through support to innovative, local interventions that have a demonstrated capacity for scale-up. The main USAID/SA program is the School Capacity and Innovation Program (SCIP), which also leverages significant private sector resources, amplifying the impact of USAID’s investment in the South African education system. SCIP is co-funded by The ELMA Foundation and J.P. Morgan and designed in collaboration with the South African Department of Basic Education. SCIP supports local South African models or interventions that work directly with teachers and school management teams in innovative ways in order to improve their practice as instructional leaders and managers. SCIP is aligned to the USAID Global Education Strategy (2011–2015) which supports interventions to improve learning outcomes with a focus on primary grade reading as a measure of performance. In addition to seeking initiatives that demonstrate innovation and impact, sustainability and scalability are key components of the SCIP program. The Teacher Assessment Resources for Monitoring and Improving Instruction for Foundation Phase (TARMII-FP) will provide teachers with a computer-based assessment tool that will help teachers to more effectively address individual student learning needs in literacy. TARMII-FP is implemented by the Human Sciences Research Council and is co-funded by USAID, the ELMA Foundation, and J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation, with non-financial support from the South African Department of Basic Education. This $1.5 million project, part of the SCIP, is designed to improve primary grade reading outcomes by building teacher effectiveness and strengthening classroom and school management. Running from July 2012 to June 2015, TARMII-FP will enable teachers to draw upon a database of thousands of reading activities and test items to generate assessments and homework exercises tailored for their students. The tool will allow teachers to record and analyze student results.

Aprender a Ler (ApaL) is a four-year USAID-funded program designed to improve student reading outcomes in grades 2 and 3 in selected schools in Nampula and Zambézia Provinces in Mozambique. Managed by World Education, Inc. (WEI), ApaL works closely with the Ministry of Education in Mozambique (MINED) to improve the quality and increase the quantity of reading instruction. The program includes teacher training, coaching and support in improved reading instruction methods, and school management training, coaching and support for school directors. ApaL began with delivery of the program in 35 Zonas de Influencia Pedagogica (ZIPs) in six districts along the economic corridors of the provinces of Nampula and Zambézia. ZIPs are formed by one “head” school and a cluster of five, ten or more schools. The “head” school of a ZIP is usually better organized than the surrounding schools and is tasked with reporting to the district and receiving and distributing teaching material and resources that are sent by the MINED. The “head” of the ZIP schools also serve as an example and a magnet for training and improvement of the surrounding schools. Based on experience during initial implementation, expansion to approximately five hundred schools in the area was anticipated, and in 2015, ApaL expanded to 538 schools. USAID selected these provinces because at the time of program design, they contained 42 percent of the school age population of Mozambique. At the beginning of the 2013 school year, 180 schools clustered around the 35 ZIPs in the two provinces were randomly assigned by the IE to three groups – 60 schools to Full treatment, 60 to Medium treatment, and 60 to a no-treatment or Control group. There have been four stages of reading assessment: (1) Baseline data collection and analysis at the beginning of the 2013 school year prior to program implementation; (2) Midline 1, near the end of the 2013 school year, after two or three months of implementation; (3) Midline 2, after a full year of implementation, 2014; and (4) the 2015 endline study.

The Ethiopia TEACH II activity aimed to strengthen the provision of equitable basic education services by implementing alternative basic education for children and youth, functional literacy for adults and improving the capacity of Woreda Education Offices (WEO) to manage non-formal educational programs. The activity operated in eight regions and provided instruction in four languages. The target population of the study were Level II learners from selected woredas in the SNNP, Tigray, Amhara, Benishangul, Oromia, Afar, Gambella, and Somali regions where PACT-Ethiopia and its partners operated. Students were randomly selected to measure basic literacy skills targeted at the Grade 2 level using EGRA assessments in eight different languages. The EGRA assessment sub-tasks measuring basic literacy skills were incremental in their complexity. Each sub-task was presented to the child on a one–to-one basis. Questionnaires were also administered to understand the background of the students.

This data asset contains responses from the 2018 baseline early grade reading assessment (EGRA) for USAID Senegal's All Children Reading (Lecture Pour Tous) project. Responses were collected from students, teachers, and head teachers/school directors.