Costing Early Grade Reading Programs
An Examination of Various Costs and Issues Around Costing
Substantial improvements in access to basic education have been achieved over the decades during which Education for All has been a global focus. Recently, the development community has turned an eye toward education quality—what children learn once they gain access to school. Particular attention has focused on early grade reading (EGR), which is a fundamental aspect of a high-quality education, not just as an academic end (learning how to read), but as a means to many academic ends (reading to learn). Over the past few years, early grade reading assessments have been undertaken in a great many developing countries, only to find that development of reading skills in most is rather poor. This being the case, improving instruction and outcomes in early grade reading in these countries has become the focus of many donors and development practitioners. USAID, for example, has put forth the goal of “improved reading skills for 100 million children in primary grades by 2015.”