Students in low-income countries often have trouble learning to read; 80-90 percent of second and third graders in some countries cannot even read a single word and may know few if any letters (RTI 2009, 2010, 2011a, 2011b). The reasons are linked to limited instructional time, textbooks or...

In low-income countries many students are marginalized very early and remain illiterate. In grades 1-3 they attend rarely, though they may officially drop out in grade 4. Many others graduate from primary school without having learned letter values. The worrisome outcomes, despite much donor...

Improving the quality of literacy teaching may require intervening at different levels, for example, encouraging school attendance and optimizing textbook format and teaching methods. Reading is a complex task involving perceptual, motor, linguistic, phonological, and memory components, each of...