In Uganda and other low-resource settings, too few children are learning to read in the early grades. In response, countries have embarked on reading reform programs, often with external support. Unfortunately, rigorous evidence of these programs’ impact remains limited. This article presents the causal impact on reading outcomes of the US Agency for International Development/School Health and Reading Program (SHRP), a mother tongue reading program that used clustered randomized controlled trials in 12 language communities. The findings suggest that significant reading gains are possible in complex, large-scale mother tongue reading programs, but their magnitude may vary by language. SHRP significantly positively affected literacy achievement in 9 of the 12 languages, an encouraging sign of such interventions’ overall potential for impact. Language characteristics, including complexity, were more predictive of impact than implementation fidelity or socioeconomic factors. We recommend that literacy improvement program designs consider language complexity and characteristics, among other factors, to maximize impact.

中文翻译：

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母语阅读教学对乌干达 12 种语言的影响以及语言复杂性、社会经济因素和计划实施的作用

在乌干达和其他资源匮乏的环境中，很少有儿童在低年级学习阅读。作为回应，各国开始了阅读改革计划，通常是在外部支持下。不幸的是，这些计划影响的严格证据仍然有限。本文介绍了美国国际开发署/学校健康与阅读计划 (SHRP) 对阅读结果的因果影响，该计划是一项母语阅读计划，在 12 个语言社区中使用了集群随机对照试验。研究结果表明，在复杂的、大规模的母语阅读项目中，有可能获得显着的阅读收益，但其幅度可能因语言而异。SHRP 对 12 种语言中的 9 种语言的识字成绩产生了显着的积极影响，这是此类干预措施总体影响潜力的令人鼓舞的迹象。语言特征，包括复杂性，比实施保真度或社会经济因素更能预测影响。我们建议读写能力改进计划设计考虑语言复杂性和特征等因素，以最大限度地发挥影响。