Study of Malian Primary Students' Beliefs, Attitudes and Experiences with Respect to Learning to Read and Write

To achieve this goal, the Ministry of Education must make considerable advances in improving students' reading and writing skills. There is general agreement that teachers must teach "better," but there is little agreement on what specific aspects of teachers' reading and writing instructional practices need to change if students are to perform at desired levels. No systematic assessments have been conducted to measure the extent to which teachers' literacy instructional practices, attitudes, and beliefs align with what evidence-based research tells us about "good" language teaching. Neither have there been systematic assessments of the degree to which students have access to the supports and resources necessary to develop into autonomous readers and writers. In the absence of such information, Malian decision makers are unable to identify what specifically needs to be adjusted at the classroom, school, or community level to improve students' performance. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched a program in August 2008 to assist the Ministry of Education in improving students' reading and writing performance. The USAID/PHARE program, implemented by the Education Development Center (EDC), is dedicated to helping the Ministry of Education deliver on its commitment to ensuring all children leave primary school able to read and write. One of the first initiatives undertaken by the program was the development, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, of student performance standards and accompanying grade-specific benchmarks for reading and writing. The results of the December 2008 Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) pilot provide an initial indication of the degree to which Malian students are underperforming in the key areas of reading and writing. One third of grade two students tested could not recognize any letters of the alphabet. The vast majority of students (86%) could not read any of the most common, familiar words listed. Not surprisingly, when presented with a short text, 96% of children could not read any of the words. Although grade four students performed better on the test, nine percent of them were still unable to recognize any of the letters of the alphabet and one student out of two (48%) was unable to read the most common, familiar words. The EGRA data were collected using draft instruments and hence the results cannot be interpreted as definitive. However, they do suggest that the majority of Malian classrooms are not providing learners with competencies enabling them to participate actively in public life or to continue their studies, as is called for in the country's fundamental law on education. Over the next four years, the program will assist the Ministry in developing instructional materials and teacher training programs to ensure that students develop the specific skills and competencies they should have developed by the end of grades 2, 4, and 6. The student study was largely quantitative in nature. Data were generated by having students respond to a questionnaire administered orally and in local language. The questionnaire queried qualitative information, including the types of learning activities students participate in and their beliefs and assumptions about how children learn to read and write. The data collected was then analyzed to determine the impact of a number of factors (zone, type of instructional program, grade level, sex) on students' attitudes and language learning experiences. Data was collected from the 75 schools that participated in the EGRA pilot data collection in December 2008/January 2009. A little over half of these schools (56%) were following the bilingual Curriculum program. The remaining 33 (44%) were implementing the Classical program, where French is the language of instruction. The student data was collected in the same schools as the data for the study of teachers' beliefs, attitudes, and instructional practices, during the same school visits, and by the same group of data collectors. The eight students per school who participated in the interviews (four grade 4 students, four grade 2) were selected randomly from the subset of 16 students at each of these two grade levels randomly selected to participate in the interviews. The questionnaire used in the student study was designed to gather information on students' attitudes, beliefs, and learning experiences with respect to learning to read and write. The questionnaire was administered orally and in local language to a sample of 600 students from 75 schools. The data collected was then analyzed to determine the impact of a number of factors (zone, type of instructional program, grade level, sex) on students' attitudes and language learning experiences. The results of the student study provide a snapshot of what is happening in Malian elementary classes with respect to reading and writing development. The study found that students' attitudes and beliefs about learning to read and write are influenced by a number of factors, including their zone, type of instructional program, grade level, and sex. The study also found that students' learning experiences with respect to reading and writing are influenced by the type of instructional program they are in and the support they receive from their teachers. The study's findings have important implications for teacher training and instructional materials development. The study suggests that teachers need to be