Another in-depth case study comes from Kelley, who writes about her experience working with the Waodani people of Peru in a role that she describes as a materials developer. Her work does not focus on the original creation of the materials, but looks instead at how Waodani literacy materials changed over time in response to linguistic, cultural, and pedagogical factors. For example, after spending time observing how people read the materials, Kelley realized that one of the elements in the writing system was predictable, and did not need to be written. This linguistic factor initiated a change in the orthography that influced decisions about the lesson sequence \cite{kelley_issues_1988}, 75, 84. Kelley offers a personal touch with vignettes about life and literacy among the Waodani, and reflects on her role and decisions within the community \cite{kelley_issues_1988}, 24, 119#. She offers a series of thoughtful questions to aid other practitioners in their work, and despite being written decades ago, they are still relevant. Perhaps the most important of these is "Which roles or perspectives do or should have control, why, and how much?" \cite{kelley_issues_1988}, 116. This question brings issues of power to the forefront; deciding who will make decisions determines anything in the project that is within the team's control.
From the Philippines, Morren provides a detailed description of creating reading materials in the Sama Bangingi language with a strong commitment to linguistics. Of 435 pages in his dissertation, 90 are about the prepartory work of linguistic analysis and orthography development, while only 26 address the materials themselves. In addition, the section about the materials covers more about the content of the materials than the process itself. He does describe using an eclectic approach to teaching reading, rather than selecting a single school of thought, but his description of the Sama Bangingi materials bears a strong resemblance to Gudschinsky's linguistically based approach \cite{morren_descriptive_1977} 174-179. Unlike many of the other case studies, Morren includes complete copies of the materials at the end of his dissertation.
The only somewhat comparative work in the colelction is the UNESCO report Development of Basic Literacy Learning Materials for Minority Peoples in Asia and the Pacific, which came out of a regional meeting in 1994. Most of the others described one case, or used multiple cases to illustrate particular facets of the process without comparative information. Participants in the meeting collaborated to create guidelines for preparing literacy materials, with descriptions of each of the steps and questions to answer along the way. This makes it similar to the how-to materials above, but the report contains reports on materials creation for three communities in the region. For each community, it describes a field survey, curriculm prepartion, field testing, and responses to those tests. The report contains sample texts, illustrations, and teacher's guides from each of the projects. \cite{rai_development_1994} However, the report tends to describe the content of the materials, rather than who was involved in making them and how they made decisions.
Some materials were not focused on the materials creation process itself, but still offered some insight. Two of these were about the importance of local knowledge in children's reading materials, with brief descriptions of the path to making these materials. The first was Trudell and Ndunde’s (2015) report Making Space for Local Knowledge, which provides a clear description of community involvement in the beginning phases of materials development in a Kenyan language community. SIL International members trained Kamba-speaking facilitators, who ran focus groups with community members to decide on the types of stories that children should read, and then Kamba people developed corresponding literature \cite{trudell_making_2015}, 8-9#. In a similar vein, Ng'asike promotes the use of indigenous knolwedge for children in the Turkana community of Kenya. He briefly describes how he collected oral stories from families and elders, then worked with other teachers and elders to analyze and edit the stories, which were then piloted with local children. \cite{ngasike_indigenous_2019} 12-14.
A report on the philosophy, activities and outcomes of the Ife Primary Education Research Project in Nigeria provides extensive documentation of how the team made materials for teaching in the Yoruba language. Over several years, they developed 183 books that covered all subjects, including teachers' books, pupils' books and workbooks, and supplementary readers \cite{fasokun_aliu_2000} 4. The project began by establishing an educational philiophy and objectives for each of the subject areas \cite{ref24086035} 51. Next, they recruited writing panels that created materials to convey those objectives for each subject. Members of the panels were recruited from universities, teacher training colleges, the classroom, and the local community \cite{ref24086035} 31. The teams began by examining exisiting materials, eventually deciding that it was best to develop new ones \cite{ref24086035} 29. As the writing teams created the materials, they also developed the Yoruba language, especially through adding words for technical concepts. \cite{ref24086035} 32 Teachers tested the first edition of the materials for a year and provided feedback on them during the next phase of development. \cite{ref24086035} 53 This detailed process with many participants and a wide mandate was possible because the project created the materials ahead of the year they would be used. \cite{ref24086035} 31
Another article that touches on materials creation about materials creation is centered on the National Literacy Acceleration Program in Ghana. While the article is more focused on the intricacies of education policy and reform, the authors do document the timeline for the project and the backgrounds of people who worked on it. The team created materials by generating templates and stories in English, which were then translated and adapted into 11 Ghanaian languages. \cite{rosekrans_education_2012}, 609-611#. Similarly, the Nicaraguan Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport created materials for the Miskito and Sumo-Mayangna lagnauges through a process of translation from Spanish, with adaptations to the local context and culture \cite{Valiente_Catter_2011}.
A few other texts offer some helpful insights into materials creation, although not in the length of the texts already mentioned. One mentions that in Uganda, not all language communities had reached consensus on their orthographies. To ensure use of an acceptable orthography in the materials, the project staff spent six months working intensively with technical experts and local language boards to discuss, validate, and standardize the orthographies for those langages. Next, the porject team trained writers in using the newly affirmed orthographies, and then the teaching and learning materials were creted using those orthographies \cite{rti_international_planning_2015}, 33. Ilboudo briefly describes the materials development process for several languages in Burkina Faso. For the pilot program, a team of technical experts wrote materials in Mooré, the most widely spoken national language in Burkina Faso. These materials were then pre-tested, revised, and validated in Mooré. After that, linguistic teams from other languages adapted or translated the materials with assistance from the original design team. AFter one to two years of use, the textbooks were evaluated by pupils, parents, teachers, and other educators. \cite{ilboudo_bilingual_2010}, 82-83. Finally, the Read Malawi program worked with teachers in a writing workshop to transform stories into books. Teachers wrote stories about topics that would interest their students, which were then tested in classrooms to ensure they were appropriately leveled. Local artists created images to support the texts, working with both the authors and editors to ensure that they were relevant and high quality. The project also created teacher's guides that provided a patterned approach to instruction. \cite{sailors_developing_2017}, 201-202.
Overview of the Process
From both the how-to texts and the case studies, a general pattern for the materials creation process emerged. While not all cases or recommendations include all steps, the phases appear in multiple texts and serve as a useful overview. For brevity, each step will include some suggested references, but other texts may also discuss that part of the process. Additionally, the process is not linear, and there is usually movement back and forth between some of the steps, particularly revision and testing.
Research
A key part of the process is gathering information about the community or communities that the materials will serve. Preapring to create materials requires understanding some aspects of the culture, language, demographics, school environment, etc (chatry Komarek, Rai). This research often means researching the langauge itself, including the sounds within it, grammatical structures, and grapheme frequency (Morren, Kelley, Weber).
language development:
The research phase may reveal some functions that the language has not had to fulfill before. It might never have been used in writing before, been used only for a short time. In that case, it may be necessary for the community to establish a writing system, or to revise and improve an exisiting writing system (Morren, RTI). Often, the languages have not been used in formal schooling before, so the community has not yet agreed on some of the words that will be used in teavching and learning materials. The community may need to come together to identyify or create words for scientific, mathematical, or pedagogical concepts (Fafunwa).
Deciding on the Curriculum and Methdology
To make quality materials, the materials creation team needs to know wht to teach and how to teach it. Developing the curriculum is a matter of deciding what skills and knowledge students should learn, and choosing a methodology means identifying an overarching approach to conveying those skills and knowledge. The team needs to consider the source, assumptions, structure, and limitations of the various available models (Chatry Komarek, Kelley, Fafunwa).
assembling a team:
It is normal for this process to be performed by a team, so at some point the people facilitating the process need to identify who will work on the materials. This can include Ministry of education officials, educational consultants, educators, speakers of the langauge, elders, editors, illustrators, linguists, and community members. (Ng'asike, RTI, Rosarek)
content creation
The most obvious and least optional step in the whole process is creating the content. The materials must have text, and usually contain exercises and illustrations, too. Someone has to generate the stories, explanations, activities, and pictures in the materials. (Foerster, Stringer, Ng'asike, Chatry Komarek, Catter)
formatting
Although it may not seem interesting, the way the content is laid out on the page, the size of the books, and the printing style have an impact on how teachers and students use the materials, so the team will have to make decisions about formatting. (chatry komarek, kelley)
testing and evaluation
Once some verson of the materials is complete, it can be tested and evaluated to see how it fucntions in a classroom and what the community thinks of it. A common way to test the materials is to print some and use them with a small number of students for a term or a year, which is sometimes called a pilot test (Fafunwa, Chatry-Komarek, Rai, Ilboudo).
revision and editing
As with anything publication, the first draft of the materials will have significant room for improvement. Materials may have spelling errors, unclear directions, or culturally inappropriate material. Based on testing, teachers may have ideas for how to make the materials more interesting and effective. Revision and editing will likely occur throughout the creation, formatting, and testing processes. (Fafunwa, Ilboudo)
Full scale use
It is always the intention that after the creation, testing, and revision steps, the materials will be used to benefit many students.
[Issues in the Process]
(not sure about including this section. I'm incorporating some of these ideas based more on the analysis of my own data, rather than the literature review.)
From the literature, the issues in this process come down to three major decisons
Who makes decisions?
may not be people with experience in materials creation within the community
Who are the participants? What are their perspectives and their roles in development? What does it mean for them to participate? \cite{kelley_issues_1988}, 120 #. who makes decisions about quality control? What content to incorporate?
what content from the dominant and non-dominant culture?
what languages? only ND or also dominant?
What methodology to use?
What is the model's source? Waht are its limitations and assumpetions? What structure and flexibility are offered? \cite{kelley_issues_1988}, 120 #bottom-up or top-down reading strategies
scripting
Policy and Provision of Teaching and Learning Materials
There is also a body of literature that addresses the topic of the policies and provision of textbooks. These generally do not offer specific guidance on the process of creation, but some address issues around language that would be helpful in planning at a larger level. The most recent resource found is a toolkit published by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on planning for language use in education. It touches on materials development briefly, but spans the wider process with recommendations for engaging stakeholders, supporting language standardization, developing language policy, and monitoring outcomes \cite{rti_international_planning_2015}. The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) published a report on policies and practices around the provision of teaching and learning materials. It touches on language, but takes a rather negative approach toward the use of local languages, citing financial complications, complexity in teacher training, politics, and different levels of population and development between language communities \cite{read_learning_2011}, 15. Also writing about publishing, Edwards and Ngwaru acknowledge the constraints on local language publishing, but provide possible solutions. To provide supplementary reding materials, publishers may be able to increase non-dominant language book sales by identifying more interesting topics, altering distribution patterns, and providing books at lower price points \cite{edwards_multilingual_2011}, 443–445.