The document outlines a mobile learning workshop organized by the African Virtual University to teach participants how to develop data collection tools and conduct literacy assessments using handheld devices. The workshop will provide an introduction to Early Grade Reading Assessments (EGRA) and teach administration of EGRA tools through demonstrations and hands-on practice sessions using tablets and mobile apps. Participants will practice administering literacy assessments and scoring responses to ensure consistent evaluation of reading skills.

1. AFRICAN VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY
MOBILE LEARNING WORKSHOP
Harnessing the Power and Promise of Mobile
Technologies to Make Literacy Data Collection and
Management Easy and Fun
July 22, 2016
By:
Evans W Mahaya
Crowne Plaza, Nairobi

2. The workshop will provide opportunity for participants to:
Outline their expectations about mobile learning.
Acquire knowledge and practical skills about developing
data collection tools.
Administer surveys/assessments accurately and precisely
with confidence using hand-held devices.
Demonstrate mastery in navigating the tablet to conduct
mock assessments.
Specific Objectives of the Workshop

3. Analogue: It all Starts Here Right?

4. Digital: Progress?

5. Provide Clear, Precise Instructions

6. Manage Distractions

7.  Participants will listen to “student” responses and code
them simultaneously.
 Assessments are administered following specific rules
and procedures.
 Participants will score student responses in the same
manner to ensure the data consistently reflects actual
levels in terms of reading abilities, rather than scorer’s
personal evaluation of the reader’s skills.
Training Approach

8. Introduction to EGRA Tools

9. EGRA – Early Grade Reading Assessment
Diagnostic tool designed to assess foundation skills for
reading in lower grades.
Tools used to determine proportion of learners achieving
grade level competencies in reading.
EGRA is used to measure pupils’ progress towards fluent
reading with comprehension.
What is EGRA?

10.  As national reading diagnostic tools.
 To gauge the effectiveness of a program.
 For contiunous assessment of pupils by teachers.
 To investigate the language-of-instruction policy at
National, County, District or regional level.
Other Uses of EGRA

11. Why do we Assess?

12.  To determine the level of pupils’ foundational reading
skills proven to predict later reading abilities (skills
essential for learning to read).
 To determine the effect of new/refined instructional
approaches e.g. How effective is the intervention?
 Develop high quality instructional materials and
resources.
 Provide richer data for policy formulation.
Why do we Assess?

13. Implications of Early Intervention

14.  When pupils fail to learn to read early, they struggle
throughout their learning lives.
 Early success in acquiring reading skills leads to later
success in reading as pupils grow.
“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer”
 When pupils need to “Read to Learn” (RtL), their reading
inefficiency creates difficulty in learning.
(Stanovich,1986).
Implications:
Matthew Effect (Contd.)

15.  A shift in focus from improving access to improving
quality of educational opportunities.
 The need for richer data to report on foundations of
student learning.
 The need to provide a basis for continuous assessment
of students’ learning outcomes.
 The need to transfer approaches across domains and
scale-up for greater impact/wider dissemination.
 The need to locate, capture and fix deficiencies in the
education system.
Why Early Grade Reading
Assessments?

16. At a national level:
 To determine children’s current reading levels.
 If and where there are gaps in the curriculum.
 To determine instructional areas that need to be
strengthened by teacher professional development.
 To determine and set appropriate goals for change.
During an impact evaluation:
 To determine effect of the intervention on
children’s learning outcomes.
When to Administer EGRA

17.  By assessing a variety of literacy skills across domains
that are predictive of reading skills e.g. letter sound
knowledge, decoding non-words, fluency.
 By assessing domains that are easily measured.
 By assessing skills that can be changed through
instruction and as a result, improve reading.
How do we get Information?

18. EGRA provides data to be able to :
 Intervene early and strategically during the critical
window of a child’s early reading development.
 Develop and promote a comprehensive system of
instruction.
 Identify need, allocate resources, design and modify
instruction.
 Review the language policy. Oral reading fluency
measures are language specific. Word length and
orthographic complexity vary from one language to
another.
Implications of Early Grades
Reading Assessments

19. Languages differ in their phonological and morphological
structures and their orthographies.
Phonological System
Representation of sounds used in the oral and writing
system of a language.
Morphological System
Representation of meaningful units in the oral and written
system of a language.
Orthographic System
Representation of the visual symbols used in the writing
system of a language and the mapping of these symbols
onto speech and meaning.
Overview of Language and Literacy

20.  Phonemic Awareness
 Alphabetic Principle
 Vocabulary
 Accuracy and Fluency with connected text
 Comprehension (Including listening comprehension)
Scope of Early Grades Reading
Assessment

21. Phases of Reading Skill Development

22.  As children map sounds to print, they also access the
words in their vocabularies. This knowledge is used to
support them in identifying the word they are reading.
 Fluency measures assess the child’s knowledge and how
they integrate the knowledge and process the
information automatically in different contexts.
 To be successful readers, children’s basic reading
competencies have to be automatic.
Achieving Automaticity

23.  Limited early literacy experiences and lack of
instruction / practice.
 Failure to develop phonemic awareness
 Failure to develop the alphabetic knowledge
 Failure to master basic decoding skills
 Accuracy in word reading but no Automaticity
Why Pupils Fail to Learn to Read

24.  To address the reading difficulties and successes from a
school-wide, systematic perspective.
 Reading measure are necessary improve instruction at a
national level and in the classroom.
 To be effective, these measures must assess skills that
have an impact on learning.
Why do we Measure Reading?

25.  A review of the procedures; including establishing
rapport and seeking verbal consent.
 Completing the school and student information.
 Detailed coverage of tasks and sub-tasks.
 Mechanism of administration, prompts and stop rules.
 Plenary, Individual and Small group guided practice.
Detailed Coverage of EGRA Tools

26. Rapport and Verbal Consent

27. Administrative Details
 Capture the school data and all student data
 This is critical during data entry and data analysis
 It provides an easy way to cross-reference data sets

28.  Letter Sound Knowledge
 Invented Words
 Oral Passage Reading
 Reading Comprehension (timed)
 Reading Comprehension (untimed)
 Pupil Context Interview
EGRA Tasks and Sub-tasks

29. Letter Sound Knowledge
 Read instructions
and practice letter
name examples with
the pupil
 Start timer when
child says the first
letter (or after 3 sec.
have elapsed)
 If child hesitates or
stops at item for 3
seconds, provide the
letter name, and say
“Please go on”
 Mark the provided
letter name as
incorrect.

30. Scoring: Letter Name Knowledge

31. Example: Letter Sound Knowledge

32.  Practice example
words with pupil.
 Start timer when
child reads the first
word (or after 3
seconds elapse)
 If the child does not
read a word after 3
seconds, provide
the word and say
“Please go on”
 Mark the provided
word as incorrect
Invented Words

33.  Stop after 60 sec. and
put a bracket.
 If the child finishes
the entire sheet in
under 60 sec, stop
the timer and write
the no. of seconds
remaining in the box
 Early stop rule: If the
child does not get any
word correct in first
line with no auto-
corrections, say
“Thank you” Check
the box to indicate
early stop.
Rules: Invented Words

34.  Practice examples with child, giving clear instructions.
 Start timer when child reads first word. If the child stops at a
word or hesitates for 3 seconds, Point to the next word and
prompt the child. Say, “Please go on”.
 Early stop rule: If all words are incorrect in the first line.
 Mark incorrect responses by slashing through
 If child skips entire line, strike through with a straight line.
nog pid lef rix sed
 Mark self-corrections as correct ker
 If child finishes before 60 seconds, record seconds remaining
in the appropriate box
Rules: Invented Words (Contd.)

35. Example: Invented Words

36. Example: Invented Words

37.  Timed to 60 sec.
Start the timer
after child reads
the first word
 Observe the 3
second prompts.
 Early stop rule:
 If all responses in
the first line are
incorrect
 If child finishes
before 60 sec.
 Record remaining
seconds .
Oral Passage Reading

38. Example: Scoring Oral Reading

39.  REMOVE the
PASSAGE from in
front of the child
 Allow pupil 15 sec
to respond
 Read the questions
up to the bracket
where the child
stopped reading.
 Tick appropriate
box as per the
child’s answer.
Questions: Reading Comprehension
Accept responses with the same meaning as those provided. Be careful not
to read the answers below the questions to the child

40. General Instructions on Assessment
How to hold Your Clipboard, Pen and Stopwatch
 Place your pen in your
dominant hand.
 Slant your clipboard such
that is points toward the
student’s forehead.
 Practice turning your
stopwatch on and off
while holding clipboard,
stopwatch and pen.
 Hold your clipboard, with
your stopwatch in your
non-dominant hand.

41.  Start the timer when the child reads the first letter or
word.
 If the child hesitates for 3 seconds, provide the name of
the letter or the word, point to the next letter or word
and say “Please go on”
 If the pupil gives you the letters sound, rather than the
name, provide name of the letter and say; “Please tell
me the NAME of the letter”. This prompt can only be
given once!
Summary of Procedures

42.  Incorrect answers and omissions: Put a slash through incorrect
answers and non-responses.
fen Q
 Self –corrections: Circle the item already slashed through if the
pupil self-corrects within 3 seconds, and count as correct.
tew W
 Skipped lines: Strike a line through any row of words or letters
that are skipped by the pupil.
nog pid lef rix sed
Summary: EGRA Scoring

43.  Early stop rule: If you have slashed/marked as incorrect
all of the letters or invented words on the first line, say
“Thank you!” Discontinue the exercise, check the box at
the bottom and go on to the next exercise.
 After 60 seconds: Say, “Stop” Mark the last letter or
word read with a square bracket ( ] ).
Summary: EGRA Stop Rules

44. Setting up Your Work Station

45. Setting up…

46.  Develop a soft copy of the tool based on the purpose of
the research
 Register in Tangerine Central (Creating an administrator
i.e the PI’s User Account).
 Tangerine: The tool development platform.
 Create or join a group in Tangerine Central.
 Create a survey or assessment on the remote server in
Tangerine Central (Or other open source software such
as Survey CTO, Survey Monkey e.t.c.)
Refer to the User Manual for a step-by-step outline of
developing survey tool and troubleshooting.
Using Hand-held Gadgets/Tablets

47.  Perform a test run and revise the survey accordingly.
 Generate the Android Package (APK) file and save it on
desktop or dropbox.
 Turn on WiFi on the hand-held device/tablet.
 Install the Tangerine Application onto the Tablets by
“double clicking” the APK file in dropbox.
 Place the icon on the home page for easy access.
 Click on the Tangerine icon to launch the application.
 Create a simple user name preferably the surname.
 Create a simple password such as 1234 or abcd
Using Hand-held…

48.  Sign in to launch the application.
 Form groups of 4 participants each to role-play.
 Simulate a data collection session. Click on the play
button to begin the survey/assessment.
 At the end of the assessment/survey, click the “Save
Results” button to save the assessment.
 To conduct another assessment /survey, click
“Perform Another Assessment”.
 Upload the assessments by clicking “Universal
upload” button on the tangerine main menu.
Using Hand-held…

49.  Look out the message: “Results Synched Successfully”
 The administrator will be able to access the
Uploaded/Synched results on the remote server (Cloud
computing).
NOTE: The Help button in Tangerine an be used to avail
additional information and important hints / reminders
to the enumerator for quick reference.
Using Hand-held…

50.  Capacitive touch screen
 Android OS [v. 2.3 or higher] - Except Lollipop v. 5.0
 HTML 5-capable browser
 Wi-Fi (b/g/n)
 4GB HDD
 512MB Memory
 1GHz dual-core processor
 7 hours battery life (without Internet turned on)
 Ability to install third-party Android applications
General Specifications

51.  3G connectivity
 Flash 10 capability
 GPRS
 Mini-/USB port
 7 inch screen (Surveys are optimized for 7’’ screen)
 Ideally below 1 lb. in weight (About 450g)
General Specs…

52. A range of tablets or eReaders that meet the minimum
requirements:
Archos 70
Huawei Ideos 7
 Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 and Tab 7
Cherry Tablet 2
Original Kindle Fire
Google/Asus Nexus 7
Kindle Fire HD (7 inch and larger screens)
Nexus 7 (USD199, USD227 including tax).
Supported Devices

53. o e f n f E y a h R
a O A B n r E G l W
o h m e H e M a P a
L s o W D S e s e z
C n l t T S s N U t
J u E r c Q m a H a
c E i r w H y i e H
D n t N l a E o V x
l t t d k i Q A o t
n r E G l W o h m e

54. fen mul pax ove gib
wey rog yop pis soz
fet hal muk rea vid
nog pid lef rix sed
hig dox mex tew lub
zim ulk aze cid og
fab lop tun mey gil
len ker cit tof rin
fot nom vev fru roch
nith sug doz bab foth

56. Thank you!