UNDERSTANDING WHAT WORKS IN ORAL READING ASSESSMENTS

Figure 3. Gain in Pashto reading accuracy by HLE and book borrowing frequency in Pakistan
Low HLE Medium HLE High HLE Highest HLE
100
90
Percentage point gain
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
70.52 70.7
67.19
61.96
63.68
60.17
53.39
44.83
0
1 2 3 4
Times per month child borrowed books
Source: Mithani et al., 2011
third of the 43 multivariate models fitted, while SES
did so in 16% and sex in only 4% (Dowd et al., 2013).
Finally, without HLE data, we miss the opportunity
to understand impact and equity. For example, the
chance to determine if an intervention helped all
children equally and not just those with supportive
HLE backgrounds. Even more important, if children
from deprived HLE backgrounds had lower average
scores before an intervention or policy change, we
could determine if the shift closed that gap and
if not, what else might be needed to achieve this
goal. Figure 3 displays regression results of the
statistically significant (p