Access to literacy is critical to children's futures, but formal education may be insufficient for fostering early literacy, especially in low-resource contexts. Educational technologies used at home may be able to help, but it is unclear whether or how children (and families) will use such technologies at home in rural communities, particularly in low-literate families. In this paper, we investigate these questions with a voice-based literacy technology deployed with families in 8 rural communities in Côte d'Ivoire for 4 months. We use interviews and observations with 37 families to investigate motivations, methods, and barriers for rural families' engagement with a literacy technology accessible via feature phones. We contribute insights into how families view digital literacy as a learning goal, leverage networks of supporters, and over time, transition from explicit to implicit support for children's learning.
Dans les zones rurales de Côte d'Ivoire, les communautés pauvres, dépendant des productions agricoles de rente sont confrontées à l'épineux problème de l'éducation de leurs enfants dans une langue autre que la langue maternelle. Cette étude s'appuie sur la justification théorique de l'opportunité d'une éducation préalable en langue locale. En outre ; elle s'interroge sur les compétences linguistiques avérée des enfants débutants les différents grades primaires en langue maternelle. Nous présentons les résultats d'une nouvelle évaluation linguistique pour les enfants du primaire utilisant une batterie de tests adaptés à l'environnement ivoirien. Ainsi, (600) enfants (âge: 4-14 ans, M = 9.61 SD = 2.09; grades: CP1: n = 114; CE1: n = 232; CM1: n = 220) issus de 11 écoles dont 5 écoles bilingues (langue maternelle et français; n = 228) et 6 écoles primaires monolingues (Français, n = 338) ont participés à cette étude. Les test d'évaluation inspirés de EGRA et WJ III et IV sont composés des activités de conscience phonologique (PA: identification, élision initiale / finale, segmentation), de conscience tonémiques (TA: appariement), vocabulaire (synonyme, génération d'antonymes) et compréhension orale en langues Abidji, Attié et Baoulé. Les résultats obtenus ne relèvent aucune différence significative entre individu de l'échantillon excepté au niveau de l'âge (F(1,8)=37.47, Wilk's Λ=0.637, p<.001), et le grade (F(2,8)=14.739, Wilk's Λ=0.668, p<.001) . Les courbes de centiles permettent de déterminer si un enfant est à égalité avec ses pairs du même âge dans chaque sous-test.
Socio-economic status (SES) is closely linked to children’s reading development. Previous research suggests that executive functions (EF) mediate the effects of SES on reading, however, this research has almost exclusively focused on high-income countries (HICs). Comparatively less is known about the mechanisms that link SES and literacy in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs). Childhood experiences of poverty in LMICs have been consistently linked to cognitive development through two sets of predictors: nutrition and physical growth, and the availability of educational scaffolding at home.The influence of the home learning environment (i.e. material deprivation, types of caregiver interactions) and nutrition to support children’s physical development (i.e. children’s BMI and stature for their age) on EF and literacy was examined in 630 primary-school children (6-14 years) in rural Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa. Structural equation modeling revealed that SES had an indirect effect on EF via the home learning environment, and in turn, reading. Importantly, the home learning environment, and a child’s physical development and nutrition showed distinct contributions to EF. The results suggest that improved educational scaffolding at home and supplemented nutrition could support EF development and reduce the negative impact of socioeconomic risk factors on reading.
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