Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

A growing literature evaluates the effect of using technology to provide children in disadvantaged communities with reading materials and other educational resources at low cost. In this study we evaluate the impact of the Makhalidwe Athu project (MA), an intervention that used SMS messaging to send short stories at low (zero) cost to 1,200 2^nd and 3^rd graders in Zambia’s Eastern province, with the objective of improving their reading skills.

Specifically, MA participant households received three text messages on their mobile phones between April and December of 2016. These three messages comprised a short story for children to read with their families. Periodic meetings with participant parents were also held to talk about the structure of the program and how to read the stories with their children.

We evaluate the impact of this project on students reading skills using a randomized design. To measure reading skills we use a version of the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA). Baseline data was collected in January 2016 on roughly 1,200 children in the treatment group and 1,200 in the control group. In January 2017 we surveyed the same children using the same instrument.

Preliminary results indicate that the project had some positive and significant impacts on reading skills, specifically on reading non-words and oral reading. However, no improvement was observed on reading comprehension or listening comprehension. While the program may have had limited impact on reading skills, the activity constitutes a fairly scalable (and cheap) alternative to deliver reading materials in disadvantaged communities.