Student Performance Peaks as GLXi Grows, IDEL Assessments Show
GLXi teacher Ana María del Rosario Castillo Carías administers the 2023 IDEL test to a second grader at the Official Urban Mixed School "Colonia 1 de Mayo" in Guatemala
“Everyone who participates in the Open Books, Open Minds program should be proud of these results — from the program administrators and staff, to school leaders and teachers, to students and parents. The 2024 student assessment scores have set a new benchmark for program success, and we are eager to see where we can grow our program and expand our reach in the future. Seeing the impact of GLXi through these numbers reaffirms our commitment to bringing high-quality education to all areas of Guatemala through our innovative and impactful literacy program for grades pre-K through 3.”
Talk to any teacher who has trained with Global Learning Exchange Initiative (GLXiⓇ) and they will tell you: the Open Books, Open Minds literacy program has made a measurable difference in their classroom.
Talk to any student who benefits from GLXi’s methods and resources and they will say the same: not only have their reading abilities improved thanks to the program, but they are also having more fun!
Anecdotally, you see this and hear this every time you walk into a GLXi classroom.
But it’s also encouraging to see the numbers back it up.
GLXi teacher Roseline García Carías administers the IDEL test in 2023 to a first grade student at the Official Rural Mixed School in Guatemala.
Every year, we administer the IDEL test (“Indicadores Dinámicos del Éxito en la Lectura") to get a quantitative measure of how GLXi® students are doing with their reading and learning. This research-based formative assessment includes a series of measures designed to assess the basic early literacy skills of children learning to read in Spanish.
It is a reliable and effective way to measure student progress. And it is one of our best ways of evaluating the Open Books, Open Minds program and Open Minds in Action workshop series and pinpointing areas for improvement in the future.
And this year’s results are even better than we could have imagined!
Across all fronts, the assessments showed us that GLXi’s Open Books, Open Minds curriculum is making a huge impact across grade levels and throughout multiple regions of Guatemala.
Here are just a few highlights :
The percentage of GLXi students performing at their expected grade level far exceeded last year’s results.
GLXi students significantly outperformed control groups of students who were not following the Open Books, Open Minds curriculum.
GLXi students showed noteworthy gains in their reading levels over the course of the year, showing the real-time impact of our program.
These amazing results show the effectiveness of the GLXi education team in addressing learning issues identified by the teachers, the quality of our training, and the dedication of the teachers to help their students.
Want to know more? Then read on! We have been so excited to share these data sets with you.
IDEL Assessments - 2024 GLXi Results Surpass Prior Year’s Success
In 2023, our goal was to see 60 percent of GLXi students reading at or above their grade level by the end of the school year. Students exceeded our expectations, even in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, with about 74 percent of students meeting that benchmark.
So, of course, the bar was set high heading into this past year.
But guess what?!? GLXi teachers and students continue to prove through the numbers that our program is not only working, but improving year after year.
This year, we saw an amazing 94 percent of GLXi students performing at or above grade level. That is a remarkable result, when you consider that typically, more than half of Guatemalan children do not reach minimum standards in reading.
These numbers show that as our program becomes more advanced, and as a greater number of teachers and schools participate, the impact is far reaching. We are not just talking about individual performance — we are transforming outcomes for entire groups of students.
School Year Progress
There are several different ways to evaluate the data, and one that is always telling to us is the measure of school year progress. By assessing GLXi students at the beginning of the school year, and then again towards the end, we receive real-time feedback on how our program is working in classrooms.
The results, once again, show GLXi’s Open Books, Open Minds program is transforming learning for students.
GLXi students increased their reading levels by 31 percentage points over the course of the 2024 school year.
In other words, students’ reading skills are progressing every day due to our program.
Comparison to Non-GLXi Students
Perhaps the most important data point is that which compares GXLi students to a control group of students who are not participating in the Open Books, Open Minds program.
Here, we see exactly why so many teachers and schools are eager to receive our training and tools.
With the beginning of the year assessment, GLXi students performed at similar reading levels as students who are not involved with the Open Books, Open Minds program. In other words, they all started at about the same reading level — around 61 to 63 percent.
However, by the end of the year, GLXi students were far outperforming their peers in the non-GLXi control groups.
While 94 percent of GLXi students were at or above their grade level on reading scores, only 71 percent of control group students met that benchmark.
These are exceptional results that demonstrate our program is meeting its goals.
Learning from IDEL
One of the strengths of our Open Books, Open Minds program is we continue to assess, adapt and grow based on feedback we receive from the classroom and data like that of the IDEL assessments.
It would be easy to simply celebrate these results and the success stories that they reveal.
After all, the numbers are truly phenomenal.
But, we have also spotted areas for improvement. For example, in looking at scores on some specific skills, we learned students performed lower on phoneme segmentation, which is crucial for word decoding and comprehension. This was not a problem area last year. We owe it to participating teachers and students to investigate further.
We also want to continue to pour resources and training into the rural areas of Guatemala which can so greatly benefit from our program. It is no coincidence that we saw lower scores in regions like Chimaltenango and Suchitepéquez, where there are fewer resources and we have a lower program presence.
The results show that continued governmental and non-governmental support is essential to improving education in rural areas.
Overall, however, we are ecstatic with the 2024 IDEL results.
Although significant challenges remain in literacy in Guatemala, implementing effective educational programs like Open Books, Open Minds and Open Minds in Action (our teacher workshop program) can create substantial positive changes in students’ reading skills.
By continuing to invest resources and teacher training in different areas of Guatemala, we can one day ensure all students receive a high-quality education in the country.
You can help support our programming. Donate to GLXi here.
