This post is a review of ‘Effectiveness of Read-Aloud Instruction on Reading and Math Outcomes: Evidence from Northern Nigeria’, EPDC Research Paper No. 18-01. The authors of the report are: Wael Moussa, Emily Koester, and Olusola Alonge (April 2018). You can download the report as a PDF on EPDC’s website.
…the focus of this paper is on grade 2…the findings of this research are primarily applicable to grade 2. To test whether different RA types produce different results, we randomly assign 25 percent of all schools to deliver language RAs, another 25 percent to deliver math RAs, and the remaining half are assigned to the control group where no RA stories were provided. We further supplement the multi-treatment experimental design, by stratifying the impact estimate by student gender, socioeconomic status, and school type to test for heterogeneous treatment effects.
In a research on the use of Read Aloud (RA) as an intervention program in language and math lessons in two Northern states in Nigeria – Zamfara and Katsina – among 2, 244 students from 199 schools: 120 public schools (60%) and 79 Integrated Qur’anic schools (IQS) (40%). According to the report (p.5), “IQS are traditional Islamic learning centers that have recently expanded to include elements of the core national curriculum (Solomon, 2015).”, it was discovered that by engaging pry 2 pupils in these settings on a weekly 35 minutes RA lessons their language and math comprehension skills were able to improve.
The participants in the research were grouped according to gender, socioeconomic status (SES) and school type. These grouping was done in order to be able to measure the impacts these attributes play in the educational outcomes of the students during the RA lessons. With the language RA, it showed that girls and students in public schools and those with low SES gained most from the intervention, while with the math RA it was established that boys gained most, with the students with high SES gaining more, significantly, compared to those with low SES. Likewise, it was shown that students from public schools gained more – significantly – from the overall interventions compared to students from the Integrated Qur’anic Schools (IQS).
A fundamental issue with the research was the inability of the researchers to observe the classroom delivery of the RA lessons by the teachers, hence, the lack of opportunity for the researchers to be able to measure the quality of the RA lessons delivered by the teachers as against the criteria to which they were trained for at the beginning of each term. Another issue that was not identified was the number of classroom teachers involved in the research and the average ratio of teacher to students. Having the two information would have served as good indicators on how to effectively and efficiently replicate the strategies used during the RA lessons in similar settings. Likewise, the teachers’ level of academic and professional qualifications and years of classroom experience were not factored in into the research. These are important factors that should be explored in a research that is heavily reliant on the teachers’ ability to deliver.
As I read through the report I wondered if the use of audio-visual technologies like TV and DVD player in delivering the RA lessons to the students under the supervision of a trained teacher or adult could potentially yield better outcomes, bearing in mind that the books used for the RA lessons would have been recorded in animated formats and subtitled in Hausa language. Perhaps, the same videos could be produced in a second version recorded in English language and subtitled in Hausa language – I do acknowledge that this was beyond the scope of the research. Also, in the absence of the availability of audio-visual technologies due to cost or logistic issues, I wonder if the use of audio playing gadgets like MP3, CD, digital audio players or live transmission via a local radio station during the lessons would offer better returns on investment in terms of consistency and scalability for such an intervention program – once again, I acknowledge that this was beyond the scope of the project.
Furthermore, I’m of the opinion that radio might offer the opportunity to have a relayed program at other times of the day or week when the students are not in school, and with community sensitisation it might be possible to get adults involved in encouraging the children to listen to the RAs. Also, maybe spreading the RA lessons to at least two days of 17 minutes’ intervention time on each day on a weekly basis might yield better outcomes, but one would not know the efficacy of such suggestions without further trials. Also, will a direct reading intervention program like teaching reading skills or basic numeracy skills using strategies like direct instruction, reciprocal teaching or collaborative teaching lead to better outcomes, if same parameters are used and similar outcomes expected? Perhaps, if you’re a teacher and you’re reading this post, you can consider integrating RA lessons into your classroom practice and keep a diary that you’ll be willing to share with the public.
Finally, it is important to note that the research is a landmark achievement as nothing of such magnitude has been known to have been conducted in the history of Nigeria’s educational research with respect to RAs., and also at the international level with regards to the use of math RA lessons as intervention program. Above all, most RA research findings available prior to this research have been based mainly on contexts within the west in places like US and UK. Furthermore, the outcomes from the research give hope for the use of RA as an intervention strategy in the Nigerian compulsory education sector, particularly among students from low SES, rural settings and girls in the Northern part of the country.
Although, the researchers state in many places that some of the outcomes of the research were not statistically significant, however, if one is to consider outcomes like “girls exposed to the language RAs are 13.3 percent less likely to be identified as non- readers.” (p.12) and “…the language and math RA treatment effects increase missing number identification scores by…40 percent increase among the language RA group and 34 percent among the math RA group.” (p.15) where over 10% improvements were achieved within a school year, then one is highly motivated to see the strategy as a good means of improving the language and maths skills of students, particularly those from disadvantaged background.
You can read more about the The Reading and Numeracy Activity project on fhi360.org.