ELM – Emergent Literacy and Math Toolkit Literacy acquisition, the process of becoming a reader, begins in the earliest stages of a child’s life. This period when children are not yet reading and writing but are acquiring foundational skills and tools they need in order to read and write is called emergent or early literacy. Much in the same way, even before children learn to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and count to one hundred, children learn many concepts about numbers and mathematics that are a part of emergent or early mathematics. Early literacy and math knowledge is an even greater predictor of school outcomes than interventions in early primary grades. Most importantly, mastery of emergent literacy and math skills are not optional – they are critical for children to succeed in early primary grades. WHAT IS EMERGENT LITERACY? Early or emergent literacy refers to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes a child develops in relation to reading and writing during the early childhood years. This includes aspects of oral language, early phonological awareness, and knowing that print can carry meaning, among many others.

Emergent literacy is situated within the greater process of literacy development, with skilled reading as the ultimate goal. This first critical stage, early or emergent literacy, begins at birth and ends at the stage when a child begins to read or decode with some fluency. Emergent literacy emphasizes that very young learners (even as young as 1 and 2 years old) are already acquiring the skills and tools necessary for reading (Sulzby and Teale, 1991).

WHAT IS EMERGENT MATHEMATICS? Much in the same way as emergent literacy, emergent or early math is concerned with the earliest phases of development of mathematical and spatial concepts. Educators and researchers are beginning to look at the construction of mathematical concepts early in life in the same way that we understand literacy development – as emergent. Just as emergent readers learn that letters in the alphabet correspond to spoken sounds, the understanding that numbers have a quantity attached to them is actually a complex relationship that children begin to construct early on (Xu, Spelke, & Goddard, 2005). These early math skills are vital for later success in life, since math is used daily in adult life, and is important for future employment.

NUMBERS & COUNTING

PATTERNS SORTING & CLASSIFICATION

COMPARISON & MEASUREMENT

GEOMETRY

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Children’s ability to understand the concept of numbers & counting, order, ways of represnting numbers, 1-to-1 correspondence and quantity.

Children’s ability to recognize, duplicate & create simple patterns (things that repreat).

Children’s ability distinguish between alike & different objects and to organize/sort objects according to their properties (size, color, shape, texture, etc.)

Children’s ability to describe & compare measureale attributes, including time, length, weight and size using estimation, as well as non-standard measurements (such as hands, feet, etc.)

Children’s sense of space & position (under, over, beside, between, outside, next to, etc.) and children’s understanding of basic geometric shapes.

WHAT IS THE ELM TOOLKIT? The aim of the toolkit is to support the development of foundational early literacy and math skills among young children (ages 3-6 years) both inside and outside ECD centers (homes). The ELM toolkit builds on our signature program –Literacy Boost – and extends meaningful support to younger learners – those with and without access to ECD services. The toolkit has two components:

1. A training package for Early Childhood teachers focused on developmentally appropriate ways to support ELM skills in the classroom.

2. A family outreach package extending

opportunities to develop ELM skills at home, especially for those children with no access to ECD centers, and increasing parents’ confidence and capacity to support children’s learning.

At the heart of the ELM toolkit is the focus on books! Books in ECD centers, as well as homes, through book lending programs. Books that are used daily by children, teachers and caregivers!

The teacher training component includes three carefully designed training modules (1 day each) for ECD facilitators that are both practical and engaging. At the heart of the teacher training is a resource bank of over 100 simple, fun and effective activities and games that can be incorporated into the daily schedule of any ECD center to support ELM skills. The parent outreach component of the toolkit engages parents/caregivers of 3-5 year old children in regular workshops (8 sessions in the course of 2-3 months) with the goal of sharing with parents over 25 simple, hands-on games and activities they can do at home with their children, while following their daily routines. Given the relatively low number of ECD centers in most developing countries, the parent outreach component seeks to maximize the impact for children and families and strengthen the notion that working with parents to support children’s school readiness skills is just as critical as making ECD services accessible to more children. WHAT EVIDENCE IS THERE FOR THE IMPACT OF THE ELM TOOLKIT? Convincing evidence from multiple countries is quickly growing in support for the ELM resources. A recent RCT in Ethiopia compared three groups of children, including an ELM Group (children in ECCD centers with the ELM boost), ECCD group (children in the regular ECCD centers with no additional focus on ELM skills), and a comparison group (a group of children who never attended ECCD/non-ECCD children). The impacts of the regular ECCD program and the ELM Intervention (ELMI) on school readiness skills were evident in just five months,

with the ELMI group demonstrating tremendous gains across most school readiness domains. LANGUAGE GAINS Children in the ELMI group demonstrated almost a threefold improvement in early literacy learning compared to children in the regular ECCD program. Children without ECCD experience had negligible gains. Significant gains were seen across all aspects of emergent literacy, with the biggest gains in the Alphabet Knowledge Area. At the endline, 68% of ELMI children knew all 10 high frequency letters compared to only 25% of ECCD children and 1% of the controls.

MATH GAINS

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Comparison ECD w/o ELMI ECD w/ ELMI

ECD w/ ELMI

ECD w/o ELMI

Comparison

Baseline

43.7%

35.2% 37.2%

13.7%

22.8%

2.7%

Language Domain: Average Baseline & Gain by Group (% of 86 Items Correct)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Comparison ECCD ELMI

Gain

Baseline

42% 50.6% 49.4%

75.5% 57.5%

45.5%

Socio-personal Development: Average Baseline & Gain by Group (% of 38 correct)

We have documented the same pattern of learning in math, with children making more than three times the gains in math skills compared to regular ECCD peers. The comparison group, with no ECCD exposure, again has negligible gains in math skills compared to regular ECCD peers. While the greatest gains were made in number identification, ELMI children improved nearly 50% across the other skill areas (compared to a 6% improvement for ECCD children).

RWANDA STUDY OF ELM PARENTING CLASSES Results from a study in Rwanda compared student’s skills at the start and end of the school year when: children were enrolled in an ELM-boosted ECCD class; students were not enrolled in an ECCD class but parents were trained in ELM; and students were not enrolled in any ECCD programming. While students attending the ECCD / ELM programs made most gains, children whose parents were ELM trained and used ELM practices at home made nearly as great of gains as students enrolled. The parenting portion of the ELM program boosts children’s skills through simple games and activities built into everyday life at home. ELM captures and leverages the home time with parents / caregivers, showing proven results and effectiveness.

MORE THAN ELM SCORES INCREASE In a separate study in Ethiopia, it was found that the areas of social-personal scores on the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) tool increased in students who attended ELM-boosted schools.

0

20

40

60

80

100

Comparison ECD w/o ELMI ECD w/ ELMI

ECD w/ ELMI

ECD w/o ELMI

Comparison

Baseline

Math Domain: Average Baseline & Gain by Group (% of 86 Items Correct)

49.1%

27.8%

13.9%

29.3% 20.5%

1.9%

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

ELMI Center ELMI Parenting Non-ECCD Control

Gain

Baseline

Rwanda Study of ELM Parenting Classes Results

10%

29%

18%

26%

21%

31%

RETENTION WITH EARLY INTERVENTIONS It is an overall goal to assure that all students enroll, attend and remain in school – ELM can support this goal. Our study revealed that in Bangladesh students who attended a ELM-boosted ECCD class were 3 times more likely to be in the appropriate grade level (class 2) compared to their peers with no ECCD support.

IMPLICATIONS ON POLICY AND PRACTICE

• ELM is a promising solution to increase low reading and math outcomes in primary school.

• ELM parenting is a proven, cost-effective strategy to reach more vulnerable children who do not enroll in preschool.

• Beyond increasing Language and Math skills, ELM also improves social-emotional development.

• ELMreinforcesage-appropriate,play-basedpedagogyandimproveschild-adultinteraction.

• ELM can be implemented in centers, school- based readiness camps, at home, in community groups, or be integrated into Class 1 curricula.

FOR MORE ON ELM, CONTACT:

Sara Poehlman, Senior Director ECCD

spoehlman@savechildren.org

Marianne O’Grady, Sr. Specialist ECCD

mogrady@savechildren.org

899 N. Capitol St. NE. Suite 900 Washington, DC 20002 1-202-794-1500 savethechildren.org

ELM Graduates in Grade 2

No ECCD Children In Grade 2