Pedagogy versus School Readiness : The Impact of a Randomized Reading Instruction Intervention and Community-Based Playgroup Intervention on Early Grade Reading 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: early literacy;    early childhood development;    primary education;    reading;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7944
RP-ID  :  WPS7944

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Identifying cost-effectiveinterventions to improve early literacy is vital todeveloping countries, given the importance of early literacyfor an individual's future education outcomes andsubsequent human capital formation. This paper presents theimpact on early grade reading outcomes of two low-costrandomized interventions in Tonga: a reading instructionintervention and a community play-based activityintervention. The first intervention aims to improve earlygrade reading outcomes specifically; estimated impacts areapproximately 0.3 standard deviation, although in somereading domains impacts are substantial, ranging from 0.6 to0.7 standard deviation. The second intervention aims toimprove school readiness and subsequently early gradereading outcomes, by providing communities with support toestablish a community play-based activity. Using aninstrumental variables approach, the play-based activitydemonstrates positive impacts of around 0.2 standarddeviation in many but not all reading domains. For thedomains where a statistically significant impact ismeasured, the community play-based activity intervention isas at least as cost effective as the reading instructionintervention. The play-based activity intervention is shownto improve test scores by 0.21 to 0.47 standard deviationper US$100, depending on the reading test domain. Thereading instruction intervention improves test scores by0.08 to 0.34 standard deviation per US$100. These findingscontribute further evidence on the effectiveness of readinginstruction interventions, and possibly the first estimatesof the impact of play group–type interventions on primaryschool reading outcomes.