Evaluation of Amazonia lee reading intervention in Peru : first report

This report presents baseline results of the impact evaluation of Amazonía Lee (Amazon Reads), an early-grade reading intervention funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Amazonía Lee?s goal is to improve the reading skills of children in two Amazonian regions of Peru: Ucayali and San Martín. The impact evaluation is based on a random assignment design. In each region, schools were randomly assigned to a group that implemented Amazonía Lee or to a control group that did not implemented the program. In Ucayali, control schools received the usual services provided by the Ministry of Education. In San Martín, most control schools received a program known as Soporte Pedagógico, a Ministry initiative that offered teacher training and coaching, pedagogical materials, and remedial tutoring.

The results confirm that the random assignment created groups with similar characteristics at baseline. In 2014, Amazonía Lee schools had similar facilities and implemented similar programs than control schools in both regions. In 2014, teachers had similar demographic characteristics and used similar reading activities and instructional approaches. Furthermore, teachers divided their reading instruction time in similar ways. In 2015, first grade students in the Amazonía Lee group had similar emergent reading skills than students in the control group in both regions with one exception. In Ucayali, Amazonía Lee students had better phonemic awareness.

In both regions, Amazonía Lee teachers were more likely to have received training than teachers in the comparison schools, a few months after Amazonía Lee training had begun in 2015. But in Ucayali, the difference in training was larger. Despite the training differences, teacher outcome data suggest only a few early impacts of Amazonía Lee on teachers use of time and instructional method were found.