The Impact of an Educational Media Intervention to Support Children’s Early Learning in Rwanda
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Date
2019-03-19
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Springer
Abstract
Children in developing countries often lack sufcient support for early learning
skills prior to beginning school. This research evaluates an educational media intervention using an animated cartoon program, Akili and Me. The program was originally created in Tanzania to teach early learning skills. This program was adapted
in content and language use in this study in Rwanda. The two-week intervention
involved primary school students (mean age=7.1 years) who were randomized into
two groups (intervention and comparison group). The intervention group viewed
one Akili and Me episode a day for fve days. This viewing was repeated the following week. Similarly, the comparison watched the same amount of television but
the content consisted of local popular programs. Baseline and follow-up assessments evaluated 10 areas of early learning, using an adaptation of the International
Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA), and also children’s media
receptivity. At follow-up, children in the intervention program, Akili and Me, had
signifcantly higher scores for counting, number recognition, shape knowledge, letter identifcation, color identifcation, body part recognition, health knowledge, and
vocabulary. The analyses provide promising evidence that locally produced educational media interventions can impact early learning skills, even among children living in resource-poor communities.
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Keywords
Media receptivity · Television · Numeracy · Literacy · School readiness skills · Rwanda
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