Details of DBE – Early Grade Reading Study

Learning to read is foundational to all subsequent learning; yet the majority of South African children are being left behind in this regard. Although there are various initiatives underway to support early grade reading – and there have been many others in the past – there is little or no sense of what is working or why. The core of the project is a comparison of the cost-effectiveness of three promising intervention models to improve reading outcomes in learners’ home language (Setswana). The three interventions were implemented in the Grade 1 class of 2024 and at the Grade 2 level in 2024, thus following the same cohort of learners. In 2024 the two structured pedagogic interventions have continued at the Grade 3 level, thus ensuring that this cohort of learners were exposed to the interventions for the entire Foundation Phase. Of the three intervention models we have been evaluating, the Coaching intervention is showing a substantial positive impact after two years of intervention. This intervention included lesson plans, reading materials and on-site coaching by reading experts. Learners who received two years of this Coaching intervention were approximately 40% of a year of learning ahead of the students in the schools that received no intervention (‘business-as-usual’ schools).
Overall, the evaluation found small to moderate positive impacts of both the Parental Involvement and Training interventions and the largest gains were seen in the schools where the Coaching intervention was implemented. The evaluation further found that the Coaching intervention is helping boys catch up some of the way to girls. For all three interventions, the observed impacts are larger in urban township settings, but there is no measurable impact in deep rural settings. Finally, both the teacher support interventions (“Training” and “Coaching”) had the largest impacts in relatively large classes (38 to 45 learners).
Three documents; the Policy Summary Report, a Summary Report and an infographic on the study provide overall description of the analysis of the results of the Early Grade Reading Study after two years of implementation.
The Policy Summary Report is a 10-page summary focusing on the policy implications of this research while the Summary Report is more comprehensive. Theinfographic gives a 2 page summary of the study