E L P GUIDANCE NOTE July 2016 E L P Measuring child development and early learning This brief is intended to provide basic information on measuring young children’s development, specifically focused on the skills and abilities children are likely to need upon entry to primary school.1 WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO MEASURE CHILD DEVELOPMENT? In response to convincing evidence on the benefits of supporting young children's cognitive and emotional development, investment in early childhood programming is increasing. Parents, policy makers, and funders are increasingly interested in measuring and tracking children’s development to understand whether programs are having intended impacts and if children are developing adequately. Achieving reliable and regular measures of young children’s development, as well as measures of the quality of their early learning environment and experience, is essential This brief was produced by the to address the problem of poor learning outcomes in countries around the Early Learning Partnership and reflects significant contributions world. from the following core members of the Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO) HOW DO WE MEASURE YOUNG CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT? Initiative: Amanda Devercelli, Lucy There are several domains of young children’s development that are Bassett, Alexandra Solano Rocha, Abbie Raikes, Kate Anderson, Tamar considered important to measure. These can be conceptualized in different Manuelyan Atinc, Pia Britto, Ana ways, but generally include the following areas: cognitive, language, Nieto, and Fabiola Lara. motor, socio-emotional, and executive function/self-regulation.2 These domains contribute to children’s long-term well-being and are overlapping For more information or to be and mutually influencing. For example, self-regulation is thought to be added to the ELP mailing list, please write to relevant across all domains because it is central to what children learn earlylearningpartnership@ and experience; likewise, language skills influence cognitive and socio- worldbank.org emotional development in addition to the ability to communicate. Key domains to be considered when measuring young children’s development include these³: Cognitive: This includes pre-literacy, problem solving, measurement and comparison, analytical thinking, memory, and early mathematical and number sense. Language: This includes a child’s knowledge and use of words, both in print and in oral form. Motor development:This includes fine and gross motor skills and measures a child’s capacity to control his or her body movements to perform everyday tasks, such as walking, running, or jumping, as well as drawing, writing, holding utensils and picking up objects. Socio-emotional: This includes a child’s awareness of his or her own feelings and those of others. It also measures children’s social interactions and how children manage their behaviors. Executive function/self-regulation: This includes self-control (inhibition and delaying gratification), persistence, and the ability to initiate action and sustain attention. How do we test children’s abilities within these domains? As elaborated in Table 1, domains are the broad areas to be measured (e.g., self-regulation, social-emotional). Within each domain, there are particular traits or skills to be measured called constructs. These can be things like counting (for early math skills, a subdomain of pre-academic or cognitive skills), or working memory (for self-regulation). Specific survey items are used to measure the constructs, such as a counting test to measure counting skills, or a parent survey question about peer-to-peer interaction. What are the different methods available to collect data on children’s development? There are a range of methods available to collect data on children’s de- velopment, each with advantages and disadvantages (see Table 2). Some require more time, some have a higher degree of bias, and others are more costly. By using more than one method, you can triangulate data to increase the strength of the assessment results. However, potential disad- vantages of triangulating data are that it can be costly and can sometimes simply yield the same information twice rather than adding considerable value. Some tools use one method only (e.g., just direct assessment), while others use multiple methods. Different tools are How do we select an instrument? better suited to some Defining why you are interested in measuring young children’s purposes; be sure development will help you determine the type of measurement tool you are clear about needed. The purpose of the measurement will then have implications the purpose of the for the resources, time, and stakeholders to conduct the assessment. As measurement effort examples: the purpose could be to perform an impact evaluation of an early childhood development intervention; to gather information on when you select particular domain(s) of interest (e.g. to see how ready children are for your tool. primary education); to collect data to inform policy (e.g. the degree of development differences across socio-economic groups) or to improve a system or program variable (e.g. teacher instruction); or to diagnose and assess child progress at a population level. A central question is whether 2 EARLY LEARNING PARTNERSHIP TABLE 1 Examples of domains, constructs, and items to measure child development outcomes DOMAIN CONSTRUCT ITEM NAME DESCRIPTION Cognitive or pre- One-to-one Producing a set • Twenty items/objects are in front of the child. academic (early math correspondence • Ask child to hand you three items. skills) • If child is successful, rearrange the 20 objects randomly. • Ask child to hand you six items. • If child is successful, rearrange the 20 objects randomly again and ask for fourteen items. Stop Rules: If the child cannot give you three items move on to the next item. If the child cannot give you six items move on to the next item. Counting Parent survey Enumerator: How high can (name) count? question about counting Counting test to Enumerator: Count as high as you can [stop child at 30] measure counting skills Language Phonemic awareness Initial sound Enumerator: I want you to tell me the beginning sound of identification each word. (The enumerator goes through a practice round first) What is the first sound in “bed” /b/ “land“ /l/ “farm“ /f/ Stop Rule: If the child does not respond after 4 seconds, mark as "No response" and say the next prompt. Executive function/ Working memory Forward digit span Enumerator: I am going to say a list of numbers. After you self-regulation hear the numbers, I want you to repeat them after me in the same order. Please listen carefully. 1…6 5…2…9 8…3…1…4 1…2…4…7…3 Motor development Fine motor skills Drawing a person Give a pencil and paper to the child and say: Enumerator: Let’s do some drawing. I’d like you to draw a picture of a girl or a boy standing up. Can you try to draw that? Socio-emotional Awareness of feelings Understanding Enumerator: Now I have some questions about feelings. development feelings Please tell me what makes you feel sad or want to cry? Then ask: Please tell me what kinds of things make you feel happy? Peer-to-peer interaction Enumerator: Does (name) show consideration of other people's feelings? Does (name) get along with other children s/he plays with? Does (name) offer to help someone who seems to need help? Does (name) comfort or assist another child who is hurt, sick or upset? Measuring child development and early learning 3 TABLE 2 Methods to collect data to measure child development METHOD DESCRIPTION ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES Direct test A trained enumerator conducts a • No problems with recall bias • Can be difficult to test young (or direct one-on-one enumerator-to-child • No problem with bias of respondent children (they may be un- assessment session where a child is required to (e.g. parent or teacher) comfortable, distracted, tired, solve or answer questions in a certain hungry) amount of time, sometimes with the • Requires high level of training use of material provided. This testing, of person administering test which for preschool children is often • Tests that contain unfamiliar framed as a game, can occur in any elements, such as unfamiliar environment, including a classroom activities or an unfamiliar or home visit, but it is important that language, can compromise all children be tested in the same quality of assessment environment to ensure validity of results. Parent and/or Someone who knows the child well • Easy to administer and requires less • Potential bias due to social teacher report (e.g. parent or teacher) can provide the training than direct assessment desirability (telling the enu- enumerator with important information • There is evidence of correlation with merator what parent or teacher about the child’s abilities. Parent direct assessment would like child to be able and teacher reports should not be • May provide valuable information that to do) considered substitutions for each other, cannot be acquired in direct assess- • There may be systematic since they each capture a different part ment because parents and teachers differences in interpretation of the child’s life and interactions with have frequent, ongoing observations across cultures others. of children in different situations • Parent may not be able to ac- curately report child’s abilities BOX 1 the content of the tool is aligned with the goal of measurement, and RELIABILITY & whether the tool is specific enough to pick up changes in particular skills VALIDITY or designed for use across an entire population. It is important to keep in mind that the tools to measure child Reliability refers to the development should have reliable and valid measures (see Box 1). When extent to which a test will consistently provide adapting items for cultural context, you cannot assume that the reliability similar scores when and if and validity of the original items will be automatically passed on to the administered to a child or adapted items. Instead, expert guidance will likely be needed to ensure group of children over time. the reliability and validity of the modified tool. For example, when the item “number of friends a child can name” is used in some countries, it Validity refers to how effectively represents the construct of socio-emotional development, but well a test or assessment in another country this may not be the case; instead, the item could better measures what it intends to reflect language ability rather than social understanding. Tools should also measure. have good concurrent validity (measurement results correlate with other Concurrent validity refers established measures) and predictive validity (results are related to later to the extent to which the performance). results of measurement See Annex 1 for examples of commonly used tools, the domains they correspond to those of measure, countries where they have been used, estimated costs and further a previously established contact information. All of the scales featured have been validated, used in measurement for the same more than one developing country, adapted on more than one occasion to construct. be culturally appropriate, and translated into more than one language. Annex 2 shares information on the Measure of Development of Early Predictive validity refers to Learning (MODEL), which includes modules and support for countries to the extent to which results of a test are related to later measure early learning in a globally comparable way. performance that the test was designed to predict. 4 EARLY LEARNING PARTNERSHIP Key considerations when choosing an instrument to measure children’s early learning and development • Has the instrument been used before for the purpose you’ve defined? • What is the purpose of the measurement exercise? • Was the tool designed for use in the country or region where you are working, or will you need to adapt the tool to country context, culture, language, etc.? • Has the tool been validated, meaning that there is evidence that what it measures is important for children’s development over time? • How much does the tool cost? Do you need permission to use it? Are there copyright issues to consider? The Bayley Scales, the Denver Development Tests, and the Woodcock-Johnson are some examples of tests that are strictly protected by copyrights. There are also cases where only a licensed psychologist can purchase the tests from the publishing companies. • Conducting the same assessment repeatedly can give valuable information on trends in child development. Will your project have funds to use the same tool more than once to track progress over time? How can we integrate child development measurement into a national monitoring system? Many countries are seeking ways to use measurement of child development within the context of national policy planning. This could include purposes such as informing standard setting, influencing decisions about resource allocation, and/or quality improvement. It is important to align or integrate the assessment efforts into a national monitoring system. Key questions to consider include these: • Is there a unit in government that is intimately involved in the design and delivery of the first effort and through this has capacity (and willingness and mandate) to maintain and carry the work forward? • What information system is currently in use and available in-country? For example, can you integrate indicators of child development into an existing child monitoring system? Can indicators of preschool classroom quality be integrated into school census efforts that are ongoing and channeled into a national education management information system (EMIS)? • Who is available in-country to collect data regularly over time? Potential sources include local education or health officials who already inspect education facilities or assess children’s development (such as district education officers, home visiting professionals, community health workers). Local university graduate students are another source which could be developed through a partnership with a unit in a local university. Training recurrently available workers or forming partnerships with key institutions could facilitate sustainable and ongoing utilization of the data and tool(s). • Are there other related data collection efforts being carried out with which you could align your effort? Is there an upcoming education survey or assessment that you could leverage? For example, if an Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) is carried out in the country every three years, could you attach to it? Are there household surveys (DHS, MICS, etc.) with which you could align? Measuring child development and early learning 5 How much will an early learning assessment cost and how long will it take? Budgets and timelines can vary significantly (from US$60,000- US$500,000 ) depending on the country context, tool, sample size, and, especially, the purpose of measurement. For example, measurement for project evaluation would be slightly less expensive than measurement for a nationally representative study, which involves more and longer decision-making steps with government as well as more adaptation to reflect national curriculum and standards. Table 3 shows the types of budget items needed to prepare for and implement an early childhood assessment, with examples from both a project evaluation and a nationally representative study. TABLE 3 Sample budget (in USD) COUNTRY B ESTIMATE OF COUNTRY A (NATIONALLY TASK TIME NEEDED (PROJECT EVALUATION) REPRESENTATIVE STUDY) 1–4 days, including PREPARATION Preliminary meeting planning and 500 1,000 execution 10 days (often Expert time for adaptationa 2,000 6,000 ~$400–600/day) Local meeting(s) (including per 5 days 1,000 1,000 ADAPTATION diems, space, pre-piloting, etc.) Depends on Translation of tools language, length 3,000 7,500 of tool International expert time for 10 days (often 10,000 10,000 training (master trainers) ~$400–600/day) 1 week mission for TRAINING Travel (experts, TTL, etc.) each participant 20,000 20,000 Depends on 44,000 Space rental, materials, etc. 80,000 country (firm contract) Data collection (transport, 120,000d enumerators’ salary/per diem,b Depends on 44,000 (sample size DATA etc.), materials (tablets, country (sample sizec 150 children) 1,000 children) questionnaires, etc.) COLLECTION, ANALYSIS, AND Data analysise and report ~4–6 weeks 8,000 10,000 DISSEMINATION writing 1 event ($1,000– Dissemination 1,000 3,000 3,000) 1–4 missions in one OTHER General TTL travel year 5,000 15,000 TOTAL 91,000 190,000 a Includes time to update tools and prepare manual, if needed. b Depends on enumerators’ level of training required. c Note this is NOT a representative sample. d Note this amount can vary greatly depending on the country context, transportation costs, etc. e Can include psychometric analysis, statistical analysis, etc. 6 EARLY LEARNING PARTNERSHIP Measuring child development and early learning 7 TABLE 4 Approximate timeline MONTH 1 MONTH 2 MONTH 3 Hold meeting(s) to identify main research questions of X government (local/regional/global experts) Appoint task force or focal point from government X Review existing curriculum and service delivery X standards and align with assessment domains Propose study design based on government priorities X X LAUNCH AND Map out project timeline and budget X X PLANNING Write and release ToR for data collection Get ethical approval as needed Gather necessary background data for sampling purposes Select contractors and finalize terms of contract Translate and back-translate tools Hold in-person meeting(s) with national experts ADAPTATION AND (including curriculum developers, academics conducting PRE-FIELD TESTING ECD research, school inspectorate (or equivalent)) to adapt items/measures and align with curriculum Test tools on small sample and further revise and adapt tools as needed Train enumerators for data collection (training should include access to children and classrooms so enumerators can practice using the instruments) PILOTING/ DATA Collect data COLLECTION Clean data Analyze findings Synthesize findings in easily digestible reports for different audiences ANALYSIS AND Distill findings for policymakers based on current policy plans SYNTHESIS OF RESULTS AND Disseminate findings through meetings and other events with national policy makers, academics, civil DISSEMINATION society, donor partners, regional/district education officials, teachers/principals/school managers, and parents/general public Make findings accessible/understandable for teachers and parents, etc. Note: Table 4 is an approximate timeline for a national monitoring or research study. Impact evaluations might not need to go through all of these steps unless they are closely tied to curricula. The timeline is meant to be illustrative of the steps needed to undertake the measurement process and how this would be sequenced over a one-year period. In reality, depending on the specifics of the country measurement objective, the steps could be combined or expanded and could happen more or less quickly than noted in Table 4. 8 EARLY LEARNING PARTNERSHIP MONTH 4 MONTH 5 MONTH 6 MONTH 7 MONTH 8 MONTH 9 MONTH 10 MONTH 11 MONTH 12 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Measuring child development and early learning 9 HELPFUL TIPS 1. Get multiple stakeholders involved It is highly recommended to engage a variety of stakeholders in the measurement process. For adaptation, this may imply local experts such as curriculum developers, academics conducting ECD research, and school inspectors. More broadly, school administrators or service providers where the tool will be implemented, as well as parents, teachers, and government officials, should all be informed of the assess- ment. In some settings, special permits may be needed in order to conduct assessments, so exploring this and ensuring that all necessary stakehold- ers are included in the process will reduce the chances of having to take backward steps. 2. Make sure study design is informed by country issues A robust preparation process that takes into account country priorities, upcoming policy decisions, and political economy issues is essential to ensure that results will be useful for decision-making. Even if this process takes additional time at the outset, it will pay off in the usefulness and relevance of the results. 3. Adapt tools The tools presented here can be applied in a number of settings, but they should be adapted to be fully responsive to local values and context. Adaptation may involve translation or item modification, for example. 4. Test tools and make any necessary changes Testing is critical to ensure that a tool functions well and is reliable and valid in your context. Some things to consider during testing include the level of testers’ training, test environment, and test procedures (e.g. allowing time for children to get comfortable before starting). It is also useful to document the experience to see if any changes are needed. For instance, the tool may take longer than expected to administer and need to be shortened or an indicator could be poorly received or not culturally appropriate. This is the time to tweak and improve the tool before it is used as a final product. 5. Do not use tests for screening or denying access to learning opportunities While measurement in early childhood is a potentially helpful tool, it is critical that measurement not be used as a screening process or high-stakes test that could deny some children access to further schooling or services. The implications of a tool that might label a child as “special needs” should be carefully considered, particularly if services are not available to help children with special needs. 10 EARLY LEARNING PARTNERSHIP 6. Ensure enumerators have appropriate skills Enumerators should be fluent in the language spoken in the com- munities they will be visiting, should have some familiarity with the education system in the country, and must be comfortable speaking and interacting with young children, school staff and parents, since they will have to conduct interviews and guide focus groups. 7. Get the results out to a broad range of stakeholders Just as it is important to involve stakeholders at the beginning of the process to define priorities and buy in to the process, it is critical to share results with different types of audiences at different levels. This includes national policy makers and academics, civil society, donor partners, regional/district education officials, teachers/principals/school managers, and parents/general public. For some subgroups (e.g. teachers, parents), it may be necessary convey the findings in a different way to ensure they are understandable. Measuring child development and early learning 11 ANNEX 1 Selected tools to measure children’s early learning and development outcomes Note that all of the scales featured have been validated, used in more than one developing country, adapted on more than one occasion to be culturally appropriate, and translated into more than one language. TOOL DESCRIPTION DOMAINS ASQ (Ages and Stages The ASQ is an assessment used by parents, teachers or Socio-emotional, motor, and cognitive development Questionnaire) caregivers for children ages 3 months to 5 years old. It is a parent-teacher self-report, with the assessments being administered in children’s natural environments. Bayley Scales of Infant This is a direct assessment that requires a trained Motor, language, and socio-emotional development Development enumerator to be administered. EDI (Early Development EDI is a checklist of approximately 100 items, Health and well-being, language and cognitive skills, and Instrument) completed by educators, applicable for children 4–7 socio-emotional development years old, developed to facilitate population-based assessment. Early Human Capacity eHCI is a survey instrument for children 3-5 that can be Verbal communication, approaches to learning Less than Index (eHCI) completed by the child’s teacher, caregiver or parent. (including perseverance, numbers and concepts), minutes Can be used for impact evaluations as well as population cultural knowledge, literacy (reading and writing), and monitoring. social and emotional skills. East Asia Pacific Early This tools aims to assess the holistic development of Cognitive development; socio-emotional development; Less than Child Development Scales children aged 3-5. motor development; language and emergent literacy; minutes (EAP-ECDS) health, hygiene, and safety; cultural knowledge and participation; and approaches to learning IDELA (International IDELA is a direct child assessment that measures early Motor skills, early language and literacy, early numeracy/ Development Learning learning and development for children ages 3.5 to 6 years problem solving, socio-emotional development, and Assessment) with an accompanying questionnaire to assess the home approaches to learning learning environment. MODEL The primary purpose of MODEL is to aid in the Socio-emotional skills, pre-academic skills such as (Measurement measurement of groups of children (e.g. at the language, pre-literacy and pre-numeracy, and executive of Development and population level) for child development/learning. It function Early Learning) can be used for children ages 3 to 7, and data can be collected using a parent and/or teacher report and a direct assessment instrument. PRIDI (Inter-American PRIDI collects data on children ages 24–59 months Cognitive, language, motor, and socio-emotional Development Bank’s old. The survey, administered in households, includes development. The first three domains are measured Regional Project on Child approximately 22 items. via direct child observation; the socio-emotional Development Indicators) development is measured through a maternal or main caregiver questionnaire. PPVT (Peabody Picture This is a verbal assessment for children ages 2 years 6 Language (vocabulary and verbal abilities) Vocabulary Test) months to adulthood (90+years). It can be administered by anyone with familiarity with scoring and testing materials, and no formal training in psychometrics is needed. Woodcock-Johnston/ This tool is a direct assessment test that measures Cognitive development Munoz children and adults ages ages 2 years 6 months to adulthood. The tool is administered by examinators/ enumerators. 12 EARLY LEARNING PARTNERSHIP LENGTH COST COUNTRIES CONTACT 30 items and takes 10–20 US$199 for 19 questionnaires Canada, Ecuador, United States, Brookes Publishing: minutes to administer and scoring sheets among others. It is available in www.brookespublishing.com English, Spanish, French and Korean. From 25–35 minutes for US$1,135 for a set of 25 Used in nearly 30 countries, Harcourt Assessment: children under 15 months questionnaires and scoring including Argentina, Bangladesh, www.psychcorp.com and 60 minutes for children sheets China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, 15–42 months Italy, Jamaica, Poland, and Turkey. Versions of the test can be found in multiple languages. 7 to 20 minutes to administer Approx. 150 USD for license to Versions of the test can be Magdalena Janus: janusm@mcmaster.ca use; costs free/negotiable found in Australia, Canada, Chile, Ashley Gaskin: agaskin@mcmaster.ca Egypt, England, Holland, Jamaica, https://edi.offordcentre.com Kenya, Kosovo, Mexico, Moldova, Mozambique, New Zealand, USA. n 10 Less than 10 minutes Free Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Laos, Sally Brinkman: sally.brinkman@ China, Peru, Brazil, and Australia. telethonkids.org.au n 10 Full version has 85 items and Contact Nirmala Rao nrao@ Cambodia, China, Mongolia, Papua Chemba Raghavan: craghavan@unicef.org takes 45-60 minutes; short- hku.hk and Evelyn Santiago New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Nirmala Rao: nrao@hku.hk form has 33 items and takes evelyn.santiago@arnec.net for Vanuatu. Evelyn Santiago: less than 30 minutes. information on cost of training evelyn.santiago@arnec.net 24 core items (with Free with Memorandum of Used in 35 countries with varying Sara Poehlman: additional optional items) Understanding with Save the sample sizes, including Afghanistan, spoehlman@savechildren.org typically requiring 30 Children; Technical Support El Salvador, Jordan, Mali, Nepal, Amy Jo Dowd: adowd@savechildren.org minutes per child available with contract to Philippines, Romania, and the Lauren Pisani Gorman: cover labor & travel United States lpisani@savechildren.org ~30–45 minutes per child/ Free Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Abbie Raikes: abbie.raikes@unmc.edu teacher/ caregiver Krygystan, Lao PDR, Madagascar, Lucy Bassett: lbassett@worldbank.org Mongolia, Nicaragua, Sudan, Kate Anderson: klanderson@brookings.edu Tanzania Ana Nieto: anieto@unicef.org Tools and manuals available at: ecdmeasure.org 30–40 minutes to administer Free Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Aimee E. Verdisco: AIMEEV@iadb.org, per child Peru http://www.iadb.org/en/topics/education/ pridi/home,18292.html 174 vocabulary items that US$379.99 for a complete Brazil, Chile, China, France, New Pearson Assessments: take 10–15 minutes set of 25 Zealand, South Africa, United http://ags.pearsonassessments.com States, West Indies, among others. Spanish and English versions are available. Depending on the The complete battery is Mostly used in the United States Riverside Publishing: www.riverpub.com combination of subsets US$966.50 plus the additional but also administered in Costa Rica used, it can take from 60-70 costs of each individual (in Spanish) and Seychelles. minutes to administer tested. with each subset taking approximately 5–10 minutes Measuring child development and early learning 13 ANNEX 2 Measure of Development of Early Learning (MODEL) The Measure of Development of Early Learning (MODEL) was developed by the Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO) initiative. This initiative was led by the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and included experts and partners from around the world. MODEL was developed through a consultative process, drawing on the best experiences and tools for measuring child development and early learning to date. The primary purpose of MODEL is to support the measurement of groups of children, for example at the population level. Along with MODEL, another module, Measure of Early Learning Environments (MELE) was developed through MELQO to measure the quality of early learning center-based services. Beyond their use in specific country contexts, the MELQO modules were designed to have sufficient comparability across countries. MODEL contains items indexing early literacy, mathematics, and executive function, and for the teacher/caregiver report it includes items on socio-emotional development. MODEL includes both a direct assessment module, which requires trained direct observers to assess the children; and a teacher/caregiver report module based on surveys with teachers and/or caregivers. The modules are designed to work together: the direct assessment module provides information on children’s early learning, while the teacher/caregiver modules provide insight into children’s behavior in school and at home. The caregiver modules provide insight into children’s family backgrounds and home learning environments. MODEL measures cognitive, language, and executive function skills, as well as socio-emotional development. To date, MODEL has been piloted in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Colombia, Kenya, Laos PDR, Madagascar, Mongolia, Sudan, and Tanzania, with more countries (e.g., Nicaragua) in the early stages or joining soon. The content of the assessment is drawn from existing assessments, so it bears similarities with items from many of the tools profiled in Annex 2, including: ASQ, EDI, IDELA, PRIDI, among others. In addition, MODEL is aligned to the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and the Early Grade Math Assessment (EGMA). Ideally, MODEL could be used to present a nationally representative distribution of child development, which could then inform policy planning and budgeting, including resource allocations, curriculum design and teacher training programs, and ongoing monitoring of children’s development. The modules, along with manuals, guides, and other resources, are available upon request. Note that the MELQO initiative also developed a module, called the Measure of Early Learning i Environments (MELE), to assess the quality of early learning environments. The two modules (MODEL and MELE) are complementary and are both meant to be adapted to align with national systems and standards and to be used to inform policy decisions to improve early childhood development. 14 EARLY LEARNING PARTNERSHIP Measuring child development and early learning 15 ANNEX 3 Resources For more information on instruments or tools to measure children’s development and early learning, please consult: Fernald, Lia C. H., Patricia Kariger, Patrice Engle, and Abbie Raikes. Examining Early Child Development in Low-income Countries: A Toolkit for the Assessment of Children in the First Five Years of Life. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/ en/2009/04/17193896/examining-early-child-development-low-income- countries-toolkit-assessment-children-first-five-years-life Young, Mary E., and Linda M. Richardson. Early Child Development from Measurement to Action: A Priority for Growth and Equity. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/ en/2007/01/8341509/early-child-development-measurement-action NOTES 1An accompanying brief, “Measuring the quality of early learning,” provides information on measuring the quality of early childhood care and education settings. 2 This section is based on various consultations in 2014 and 2015 with MELQO’s Technical Advisory Group on Child Development and Early Learning. Raikes 2014 and Fernald et al. 2009. 3 This section is based on Fernald et al. 2009 and on Lopez Boo 2015 and Lopez Boo, Araujo, and 4 Tome 2016. These considerations were compiled from anecdotal experience with pre-piloting the MELQO 5 tool, specifically through conversations with MELQO’s Technical Advisory Group for Child Development and Early Learning Outcomes. 16 EARLY LEARNING PARTNERSHIP