The parents of students from the Al Adarisa Primary School in Inzegane, a tiny city in a southern region of Morocco, are wondering about the change in their children’s behavior.

“Our children won’t miss school for any reason,” said one of the parents in a meeting with the Provincial Education Director.

Visiting the class of Fouzia Atlassi, it’s easy to understand why.

Seated in groups, a class of second grade students work together to discuss the story of the day: أحمد والبطة  (Ahmed and the duck). An energetic Fouzia bounced about the round tables and asked comprehension questions with a variety of voice tones and gestures. Mesmerized, the students’ eyes were glued to their teacher.

“This project taught me the importance of being well prepared to achieve good results. It’s like in a game: if you come with a strategy, you will always be a winner regardless of opponents and circumstances!” Fouzia Atlassi, second grade teacher

Fouzia engaged the students in an exciting exercise about sound awareness and Arabic alphabet knowledge. Through this fun, supportive and student-centered learning experience, Fouzia succeeded in providing her students with unique insights into Arabic language by building foundational literacy skills and boosting language skills.

Fouzia’s class was a glimpse of a sweeping transformation of early-grade reading instruction in Morocco. In 2015, Fouzia made considerable investment in her teaching career when she participated in the USAID reading project Reading for Success-Small-Scale Experimentation (RFS-SSE).

The project built evidence-based practices and resources to improve reading instruction for first and second grades by providing training to primary school teachers, educators and administrators in 90 target schools.  More than 330 teachers were trained on the use of the new, revised textbooks reflecting the needs of the children at this age by introducing short, engaging, and age-appropriate texts. Upon completion of the first year of experimentation, the positive changes in the reading performance of first and second grade students were so noticeable that the ministry decided to scale up first grade reading lessons nationwide.

Building on the success of the RFS-SSE project, the Ministry of Education launched the National Program for Reading to support the piloting and scaling up of the first and second grade Arabic curriculums across Morocco. Fouzia’s classroom was part of this scale up effort.

“I owe it all to the USAID reading program,” Fouzia said. “This program reinforced everybody's belief in the success of Moroccan children.”

Through RFS-SSE, USAID’s support of and collaboration with the Ministry of Education is contributing to improved learning outcomes across Morocco. Having trained more than 20,000 primary school educators and reached over 650,000 primary school students, the RFS-SSE project seeks to better prepare these students for future success.