Total Reading Approach for Children with Smart4Kids Reading Application

Ul Run – Project Manager/ World Education

Email: urun@worlded.org.kh

Who?    World Education KAPE ET4D PED/DCD/POE

Where/When?

•  8 schools

•  2 provinces

•  ±2000 students in grade

1 and 2

•  2012-2014

Supported by All Children Reading

Implemented by:

Contents

•  Ra$onal  for  an  early  literacy  project  in  Cambodia  

•  Project  overview  1.  Short  interval  reading  

Benchmark  2.  Literacy  Coach  3.  Development  of  Rapid  

Response  System  4.  Development  of  Reading  

Toolkits  5.  Parental  Engagement  

6.  Development  of  M-­‐learning  Applica$on  

–  Standard  process  of  Smart4Kids  app  

–  Global  pedagogy  –  Standard  framework  –  Local  input  –  Language  specific  educa$onal  content  

–  Collabora$ve  project  –  Collabora$on  benefits  –  App  demonstra$on  –  Challenges  

Rationale for an early literacy project in Cambodia

-  Low levels of early grade literacy on EGRA and IBEC assessments.

-  Lack of clear assessment structure and literacy benchmarks hinders monitoring and effective teaching.

-  New readers for grades 1 and 2 gives opportunity to support teacher training and policy improvement.

Project Overview  

How to Systematically Respond to Children’s Learning Needs

1. Short interval reading benchmarks

•  Developed with MoEYS •  Combined with quarterly

assessments •  Regularly assess students

acquisition of reading skills •  Determine skill areas for

more practice •  Conducted by teachers •  Coordinated by literacy

coaches

phonemic  awareness  

phonics  

compre-­‐  hension  

fluency  

voca-­‐  bulary  

Learning  Benchmarks  

2. Literacy Coach

•  Master teacher or community member •  Coordinate assessments, RRS, use of reading toolkit and

mLearning app and parental engagement. •  Incentive from local government and community sources. •  Liaison between schools and parents •  Provide training for teachers and parents about the

importance of literacy and using the learning materials

3. Development of Rapid Response System

•  Linked directly to assessments •  Uses explicit protocols to help

children with specific reading difficulties identified through the benchmark assessments.

•  Consists of the following: –  Reading Toolkit : games, stamps,

flashcards, books, and other learning materials based on the skills present in the MoEYS textbooks

–  mLearning Application: A Khmer language learning application with games and stories linked to the MoEYS textbooks

–  Parent Engagement: Encourage parents to be involved in their child’s learning and borrow learning materials to use in school and at home

•  Create reading environment in schools in libraries and reading corners.

4. Development of Reading Toolkit

•  Learning materials for use at school or home

•  Conducted an audit of existing materials developed under previous projects from various organizations

•  Materials linked to the MoEYS reading textbooks

Literacy board game/teaching aids

5. Develop Tools for Parental Engagement

•  Improve communication between teachers and parents •  Tutor students in reading skills •  Read and borrow materials from school libraries •  mLearning app downloadable on family smartphones •  Training on using the Reading Toolkit and mLearning app

6. Development of m-Learning application

•  First Khmer language education app for primary grades

•  31 units aligned with the MoEYS Grade 1 & 2 reading textbooks and assessment benchmarks

•  Educational content for each unit provided by WEI & MoEYS

•  Attractive software stimulates children and parents.

•  Used as an intervention in RRS •  Free download from Play Store

Think Global – Act Local

Global  Pedagogy  

Standard  Framework   Local  Input  

Standard Process of Smart4Kids

Global Pedagogy Global  Pedagogy  

Phonic-based versus whole language

3 steps : Learn, Practice, Read

This 3-step pedagogy is used to build the child’s reading confidence: •  Lessons are presented in a short introduction •  Games are used to practice word completion, word

sorting, word matching, sound matching, & memory tests •  Each unit entails a short story to practice reading skills

Khmer language has a transparent spelling, thus the focus is first be on decoding and using nonsense words.

Standard Framework Standard  Framework  

Technology: The software program is identical for all languages. ET4D currently has html5 and Android-based version.

Design: The application has the same design for any language, but it can be adapted.

Process: The way the project is managed to create the content is very structured to ensure the quality standard of the software.

Standard Framework (Cont.)

Process: 1.  Develop a simulator 2.  Develop the Android Application 3.  Create the educational content in Khmer

–  Establish the curriculum in correlation with current national curriculum

–  For each lesson: Identify simple words –  For each lesson: Choose the relevant activities –  For each lesson: Create problem sets for each activity –  For each lesson: Write a short instruction –  For each lesson: Write and illustrate a short book –  Record every element (words, phoneme, instructions,

stories…) –  Upload in database –  Quality control testing

Local Input

Local  Input  

Curriculum : A curriculum to teach reading is 31 units. But this can entails 30 to 100 lessons depending on the national curriculum.

Lesson: The lesson presented through a short introduction enables the user to learn letters, phonemes...

Activity: Each lesson has several activities are designed for practice (over 20 games to choose from)

Stories and/or reading board: Each lesson has a short illustrated story and/or a simple interactive reading board.

Language specific educational content

words  

audio  

images  

story  

phonic  

Lesson  

Database  Curriculum  

Collabora3ve  Project  

EDUCATIONNAL CONTENT Structure Words Database Choose Games Choose Words Choose Distracters

STORIES WRITERS Write Mini Stories

Helper words

DEVELOPMENT Application Games

RECORDING Context Stories

Mini Stories Words and Sound

Games instructions

ILLUSTRATORS Mini Stories

Words

TRANSLATION Context stories Games instructions Application instruction

•  ET4D licenses its reading software, which reduces costs and enables partners to allocate more funding to implementation and deployment.

•  ET4D can adapt the software if an organization has specific requirements.

•  ET4D application design follows the recommendations of experts in literacy and digital education.

•  ET4D assists in the development of the content and the testing process.

Collaboration Benefits

App Demonstration

Learning

Activities (Over 20 Available)  

Reading

Challenges

•  The major implications of the Khmer script for the app development.

•  ET4D is unable to test the application and identify bugs. As a consequence, the local Cambodian team had to deal with more testing than it would have been the case if ET4D had been able to read the Khmer script.

•  The lack of flexibility in the design of Smart4kids makes it impossible to accommodate different screen size or image density.

Ques3on???