From evidence to impact: Reading that changes lives

If 90% of children could read by the age of 10, worldwide GDP per capita would be 27% higher by 2050. Hundreds of millions more would complete primary school. More young people would access stable, meaningful employment. And millions of child deaths could be averted.

Learning to read is not just an educational milestone – it is a gateway to a different life. Yet even the best programmes still leave too many children short of reading proficiency. There is an urgent need for innovations that move more children further and faster towards skilled reading. Building foundational skills early enables children to read and understand the texts they encounter later in school – unlocking the academic, economic, and civic benefits that education is meant to deliver.

What the evidence tells us

In December 2025, the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP) convened by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the World Bank, and UNICEF published Effective reading instruction in low- and middle-income countries: what the evidence shows.

Synthesising 151 studies across more than 167 languages, it set out the strongest case yet for a core set of instructional principles that support children to become readers.

But the report is honest about what existing evidence cannot tell us. Principles identified in research do not automatically translate into classroom realities. Even programmes that show promise often leave too many children still short of fluency.

Promising foundations; more to learn

A research-practice gap sits at the heart of poor literacy outcomes. Many systems rely on outdated instructional approaches. Others have the right curriculum on paper, but teachers lack the support to deliver it.

Children do not learn to read naturally. Reading requires direct instruction – it must be taught explicitly, systematically, and comprehensively, building several key skills at the same time. We know a great deal about what works. What we need to understand better is what works best, for whom, and in which circumstances – and what combination of innovation and implementation gets the most children to fluency.

Two findings from the GEEAP report sharpen this question for sub-Saharan Africa specifically.

First, over 87% of children in the region are taught in a language they do not speak fluently at home. The evidence strongly favours teaching children to read first in their home language – with intensive oral language support where this is not possible. But how to make that work within existing government systems remains an open and urgent design challenge.

Second, implementation quality is critical. Aligned materials, teacher training, and ongoing coaching matter as much as the instructional approach itself. Figuring out how to sustain all of this inside government systems, at scale, is the key innovation opportunity.

Innovation and government adoption: two sides of the same challenge

Locally generated evidence only creates change when it is co-created with governments that are willing and ready to adopt it. Even the most effective instructional approach fails without political will and sustained government ownership. The countries that have achieved large-scale literacy gains, including Brazil’s Sobral model and India’s national NIPUN Bharat mission, did so because domestic leaders committed to reform over time, backed by coalitions with the knowledge and relationships to see it through. Building that kind of political will and domestic capacity is not incidental to improving reading outcomes. It is central to it.

Alongside government demand, we need a concerted effort to source and support innovations grounded in the science of reading that move the needle on reading with comprehension. Global Schools Forum’s recently launched Impact at Scale Labs: Acceleration to Fluency programme seeks to do exactly that. It is an investment in finding better answers, testing innovations in core instructional practices and implementation strategies to build a stronger evidence base on what moves the most children along the pathway to fluency, in real classrooms and within government systems.

This is part of a broader commitment to the idea that advancing foundational literacy requires two things working together: governments with the will and capacity to act, and locally rooted organisations generating and applying rigorous evidence. We are investing in organisations that are close enough to classrooms and governments to know what questions to ask, and rigorous enough to find answers that hold up.

The most meaningful gains come not just from testing an intervention, but from the process behind it: co-creating questions with governments, sharpening theories of change, strengthening measurement, iterating in response to evidence, and building the partnerships that make scale possible.