In a 2022 blog, the International Institute for Education Planning’s Office for Africa shares that “more than 8 out of 10 children do not reach minimum competency levels in reading and mathematics in the region.” The author asks, “Why has the rapid expansion of education not been accompanied by high-quality learning for all, and what can be done about this?”

Answering this question is still relevant today, driving many of the same fundamental global education debates, decisions and funding as it has for decades, and still fostering myriad diverse responses. These include several “smart buys” that, despite the compelling evidence, can still yield disappointing results if teachers don’t shed a few persistent practices in their delivery of reading lessons and, for that matter, of lessons for all subjects.

What follows is a summary of some deeply entrenched instructional habits that I have observed consistently over my career and that explain, I believe, much about why most students still aren’t learning to read or succeeding across the rest of the curriculum.

Pervasive instructional impediments to learning

• Choral repetition for learning and assessment. Teachers’ guiding students to read or answer in unison seems a mainstay of classrooms worldwide. The idea is that this will consolidate literacy and overall learning. At the same time, by hearing full-throated correct responses, the teacher presumes all have achieved the learning objective and that s/he can proceed with the lesson. Sadly, neither assumption is reasonable. A pupil may answer accurately but still have minimal or no understanding, simply parroting others. A teacher may hear correct answers among the cacophony, but that rarely means every student has learned or even responded accurately as s/he can’t identify precisely which students have answered correctly and which have not.
• “Sentinel” instruction and assessment. Also common is choosing one or a few students to represent learning for the whole class, at least presumably. If Mariam reads a passage fluently, her teacher seems to assume that every student can do the same or that her performing correctly will cement the learning of all. Proceeding with this evidence alone will not give a full picture of which and how students may be struggling to read. A possible exception may be when the teacher deliberately selects ‘slower learners’ as sentinels to signal reading achievement for the whole class.
• Strict fidelity to the curriculum and textbooks. To date, no one in any country has yet challenged my claim that teachers typically put their heads down on day one to sprint through the curriculum to cover it fully by year’s end. Sadly, delivering a deluge of content doesn’t equate to a flood of learning. Rather, it deprives teachers of time to contextualize content and make lessons practical while undermining their agency and, I believe, their effectiveness. Learner-centered instruction and continuous formative assessment are barely passing notions. As teachers focus on information, students mostly copy and parrot, cramming what they expect will be on their end-of-year exams—that is to say, the “finish line.”
• Teacher training can concretize bad practices. While education systems and partners officially promote established and new “best practices,” formal pre- and in-service training usually presents these more as theory than practice. However, as I frequently assert, teachers don’t learn to use learner-centered instructional strategies by sitting in a 2-hour lecture on learner-centered pedagogy. Systems simply don’t train teachers well actually to design and deliver lessons using preferred methods, nor do they model such methods in their training. The fact that teachers themselves don’t feel comfortable in the subjects they teach can put a further strain on the quality of their instruction and students’ learning.
• Insufficient opportunities for reading and writing. Without practice, there is scant opportunity for learners to perfect their literacy. Once mastering the alphabet (or alphabets), children learn to read better mostly by reading more. The same is true of writing. Yet, in most low-income contexts, children rarely find interesting, relatable materials to read whether at school or home.
• Systemic shortcomings. The effects of pedagogic practice are often compounded when systems fail to meet even minimal requirements for effective teaching and learning. This can be, for example, a matter of overcrowded classrooms, insufficient textbooks and other resources, and a depleted teachers corps with low retention. No matter a pedagogic model’s brilliance or a teacher’s excellence, it is hard to imagine solid learning happening in classes plagued by these conditions.

Addressing pervasive impediments deliberately and strategically can determine whether scaling an innovation, regardless of its success as a project, results in improved learning for all. The critical question for all interventions should be, “How can the system help teachers use the intervention capably, consistently and confidently?”

New approaches can be useful, but it is essential not to forget the basics.

Tackling impediments purposefully

Education innovations are often unburdened by entrenched habits and conditions. Packaged within funded projects, implementers can select schools and classes with acceptable class sizes, staffing, facilities and learning resources—what I call “hothouse flower” projects.

The Speed School program, which Geneva Global has implemented in Ethiopia since 2011 and Uganda since 2016, offers one example of how to chip away at impediments to learning.

Globally recognized, the model’s success is only partly attributable to its “innovative pedagogy.” Rather, the model’s instructional methods are ones countries and international partners have trained teachers to use for decades but rarely appear in classroom practice.

But Speed School instructors use them consistently and effectively. Why? I offer five reasons:

1. By using a condensed curriculum, teachers are able (and expected) to enrich lessons with contextual content, practical applications and purposeful cultivation of personal competencies.
2. Training focuses on using the methods, not on concepts and decontextualized techniques.
3. Speed School instructors receive attention after training from school leaders to keep strengthening their practice while nurturing a growth mindset and reflective practice.
4. The model places teachers on roads, not rails, empowering them to summon their creativity and initiative, alone and collectively, to design and deliver lessons using the most appropriate methods.
5. We do not operate in overcrowded classrooms.

All these reasons focus on addressing how teachers can succeed, irrespective of the what that any new approach entails. If the goal is to improve learning, we need to bring focus back to improving the fundamentals of the instruction that children receive. In other words, don’t forget the how.