Foundational Learning Roadmap (2025 – 2027)

Globally, an estimated two-thirds of children cannot read a simple text by age 10, and learning outcomes remain especially poor in crisis-affected settings. This roadmap sets out Save the Children’s approach to advancing foundational learning – literacy, numeracy, and social and emotional competencies – across the 2025-27 strategy period.

Drawing on programme evidence and the wider sector evidence base, the roadmap identifies levelled learning as a priority area for the strategy period. Levelled learning, exemplified by Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) and Save the Children’s Catch-Up Clubs, groups children by learning level rather than grade or age to deliver targeted instruction. The roadmap makes the case for this focus on four grounds: impact, cost-effectiveness, adaptability, and scalability, citing a range of evidence that showcases consistent literacy and numeracy gains – particularly among the lowest-performing learners.

The document also proposes priority research questions to strengthen the evidence base going forward. It concludes that levelled learning, while not a universal solution, offers one of the most reliable, scalable, and cost-effective routes to improving foundational learning outcomes at scale, and should be used flexibly alongside – not instead of – Save the Children’s other teaching and learning approaches.