4,000 children benefited from Save the Children’s pilot project

It is estimated that 4,000 ethnic minority children aged 3 to 6 years in Van Chan District of Yen Bai Province and Tay Giang District of Quang Nam Province benefited from the pilot of Emergent Literacy and Math (ELM) toolkit to build foundational reading and math skills. Additionally, the capacity of 2,200 teachers and caregivers were enhanced to support children to start building foundational skills early hence provide them with greater readiness to enter Grade 1.

The assessment results of the toolkit’s three-year pilot using International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) showed a considerable improvement in the IDELA scores in all domains among benefited children, specifically, motion skills increased from 44% to 56%, early literacy skills from 21% to 37%, early math skills from 38% to 50% and socioemotional development from 27% to 32%. The average IDELA score increased 11% compared to the score evaluated in prior to the pilot of the project.

With respect to the ELM toolkit, Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Head of the Department of Education and Training, Tay Giang District, Quang Nam Province, stated that: “In Tay Giang, our teachers started integrating the toolkit in their early education program for Co Tu children and communities to develop learning and teaching materials. We have seen an increase in the children’s interest and positive results in their emergent literacy and math skills in pre-school classes.”

Based on the results of the pilot, the Ministry of Education and Training assigned its Agency of Teacher and Education Administrators to coordinate the review process of the ELM Toolkit by acclaimed early childhood education experts in order to apply the toolkit at national scale. Recently, the Ministry and Save the Children hosted a national workshop to introduce the toolkit to the toolkit to education administrators of 25 provinces for further application.

“ELM toolkit has been proven as an effective toolkit throughout its three-year pilot. This is a very useful toolkit to support teachers in their execution of national early childhood education program. We highly recommend preschool teachers to integrate the toolkit into their existing curriculum. On the occasion of this conference, we would like to officially introduce the ELM toolkit to the relevant stakeholders,” Mr. Hoang Duc Minh, Head of Agency of Teacher and Education Administrators, said.

Ms. Dragana Strinic, Country Director of Save the Children, asserted that: “We hope that the ELM toolkit will help teachers, parents and caregivers provide quality education in line with the early childhood education program in Vietnam. This is especially important for remote areas where ethnic minority children are facing educational difficulties.”

To support for further replication of the toolkit, Save the Children developed a website to provide information about the ELM toolkit and demonstration learning lessons with ELM integrated activity cards. A social network page has been created to promote experience sharing among preschool teacher communities who integrate the ELM into their existing early childhood education curriculum.

Website for ELM Toolkit: Materials & Application: https://elm-vietnam.edu.vn

Facebook page for ELM interaction: https://www.facebook.com/elmvietnam/

YouTube channel for ELM video storage: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCy_aBVfPLG0zLL8OnJWgeQ