EARLY GRADE READING FLUENCY AND COMPREHENSION IN MACEDONIA

Апстракт

Assessments of student learning in early grades, with instruments such as the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), offer an opportunity to determine whether early grade students are developing the fundamental skills upon which all other literacy skills build, and, if not, where efforts might be best directed. This is vital information for improving the quality of education, as the lack of quality assessment data in Macedonia, particularly after the introduction of several educational reforms, made it difficult to provide a clear overview of the current status of early grade student reading performance.
The Foundation for Education and Cultural Initiatives “Step by Step” - Macedonia through the USAID Readers are Leaders Project, implemented in partnership with the education intuitions conducted nation-wide assessment in May 2016 with EGRA instrument of around 8,000 students at the end of Grade 2 and Grade 3 from 335 primary schools in Macedonian, Albanian and Turkish language of instruction.
The results show that even students at the end of third grade do not have developed reading fluency, which directly affects their reading comprehension skills. Some of the examined environment factors show that education of parents, reading skills before starting school, availability of books at home and borrowing books from the library are predictors of better reading fluency and comprehension at school.
The application of EGRA demonstrated that early grade assessments provide critically important information for opening a policy dialogue in order to inform education stakeholders of the current status of students’ performance, to review education programs and policy in the country and to raise awareness about the importance of reading in the early grades for all future learning.