Understanding Improvements in Reading Performance in Liberia: Investigating the Centrality of Text

This study evaluates the effect of the Read Liberia intervention that provided teacher training, coaching, and teaching and learning materials, reaching 57,600 grades 1 and 2 students across 640 schools. Exploiting the randomized assignment of schools to the program, we find that Read Liberia improved students’ ability to read a paragraph, doubling oral reading fluency in intervention schools relative to control schools (an effect size of 0.60 standard deviations), and increased their ability to comprehend that paragraph (oral reading comprehension) by 12–13 percentage points, corresponding to an effect size of 0.47 standard deviations. On the basis of the analysis of the program implementation data, teachers’ and students’ surveys, and in-depth classroom observations, we argue that the improvements in reading performance are driven by the availability and utilization of Read Liberia reading materials and not by improved teaching practices in schools. Good-quality reading materials combined with improved instructional practices have the potential to generate even higher effects.