Intervening at Home and Then at School : A Randomized Evaluation of Two Approaches to Improve Early Educational Outcomes in Tonga

Macdonald, Kevin ; Brinkman, Sally ; Jarvie, Wendy ; Machuca-Sierra, Myrna ; McDonall, Kris ; Messaoud-Galusi, Souhila ; Tapueluelu, Siosiana ; Vu, Binh Thanh

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SCHOOL READINESS;    EARLY CHILD EDUCATION;    CHILDCARE;    EDUCATION POLICY;    GENDER;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8682
RP-ID  :  WPS8682

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper evaluates and compares tworandomized interventions in Tonga, one targeting the homeenvironment of children up to age 5 and one targeting theschool environment for first and second grade students. Thefirst intervention supports communities to set up and runplaygroups that aim to improve caregiver-child interactionat home and ultimately improve children's readiness forschool. Among children of mothers without high schooleducation, being in a treatment community positively affectsthe school readiness literacy domains and overall score by0.19 and 0.2 standard deviation, respectively, for girls andthe literacy domains for boys by 0.17 standard deviation.The second intervention provides teachers with training,materials, and coaching to improve reading instructionpractices and students’ reading ability. It increasedaverage early grade reading scores by approximately 0.18standard deviation per year of exposure. Two cohorts ofchildren were potentially exposed to both interventions,providing an opportunity to compare, for the same populationof children, the effects of an early childhood interventionwith a school-based intervention using a common measure oflearning achievement. The school readiness intervention isfound to have positive effects on early grade reading scoresonly among children in the reading intervention’s controlgroup; effect sizes of approximately 0.29 standard deviationwere found at the end of second grade for children exposedto one year of the school readiness intervention and at theend of first grade for girls exposed to two years of the intervention.