Supporting the development of Indian primary school children’s reading comprehension skills: A multilingually scaffolded intervention

In this study, we present a pedagogical intervention to strengthen English reading comprehension in Indian multilingual primary-school children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Specifically, we aimed to improve reading comprehension by providing structured, mixed-language intervention in government and low-cost private schools in Hyderabad (Telangana) in order to promote language comprehension strategies in multilingual classrooms. Targeting the structured use of home languages to build vocabulary, we encouraged verbal reasoning through scaffolded questions and peer-group discussions. The children’s teachers received training from the research team to administer the intervention. A total of 317 children from 13 different primary schools participated in the study (n = 248 in the intervention group from government schools and n = 69 in the control group from private schools). The children all attended year 5; they had a mean age of 10.38 (SD = 1.01; range = [8, 15]). The control group (i.e. children from private schools) outperformed the intervention group (i.e. children from government schools) pre-intervention (50.7% correct vs. 40.6% correct). At the mid-intervention stage, the difference between the two groups became smaller but was nevertheless significant in favour of the control group (64.8% correct vs. 56.1% correct). At the post-intervention stage, however, the difference in performance between the two groups has disappeared (70.7% correct vs. 67.5% correct). The positive learning outcomes resulting from this novel, learner-centred, multilingual pedagogy could bring educational and economic benefits to India and other multilingual countries in the Global South.