Language and Learning Foundation USA

Strengthening Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) ensures children’s lifelong learning.

We partner with state governments in India to transform the teaching of FLN in classrooms at scale.

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THE LEARNING POVERTY* CRISIS

55% of children in India are unable to read and comprehend simple text at age 10

Extensive global evidence indicates that when students fail to acquire strong foundational skills by Grade 3, they do not do well in later school years and are more likely to drop out.

*Learning poverty is defined by the World Bank as being unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10.

At LLF, we collaborate with the government to close this gap in FLN at scale. We do this through:

Continuous Professional Development

Building capacity in the entire education ecosystem by training teachers, mentors, and administrators.

Demonstration Programs

Collaborating with government agencies at the district level to demonstrate the power of improved learning through effective FLN implementation.

System Strengthening

Building the capacity of the government agencies through workshops, training programs and demonstrating good practices to ensure that they can work on FLN solutions on their own.

OUR REACH

Since 2015, we have worked with 10 state governments to address this problem at scale

Hover over the colored states on the map to view our work.

Odisha

Working since 2020

Students Reached: 2,104,692

Teachers Reached: 147,124

Schools Reached: 45,327

Since 2015, we have partnered with 10 state governments, reaching over 16 million children and 1 million teachers.

WE WORK ON 3 FOCUS AREAS

Investing in Continuous Professional Development of Teachers & Mentors

Building capacity within the system to sustain foundational learning programs

Through CPD, we provide ongoing professional development to primary school teachers and academic and administrative staff that is imperative to change classroom practices and improve children’s foundational skills.

Driving System Strengthening and Reform at Scale

We collaborate with state governments to develop and implement high-quality FLN programs and also build commitment and capacity in the system to sustain them independently

This is achieved through statewide teacher training, improved preservice teacher education, building capacity of state institutions like SCERT/ DIET and state resource groups (SRGs) to support teachers and a comprehensive student assessment with a focus on remedial support to struggling learners.

Demonstrating strong teaching and learning practices at the district level

The most powerful way to bring about lasting systemic change is to co-design and develop an easily replicable and dynamic strategy that demonstrates clearly defined, tangible outcomes

Through the District Demonstration program, our objective is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the government systems of training, mentoring and data use to demonstrate how children’s learning outcomes can be improved in a period of 3-5 years

OUR IMPACT

Accountability is everything

We are a data-driven organization and we hold ourselves accountable by measuring outcomes through third-party evaluations.

Student Performance in Oral

Reading and Comprehension

30.3%

42.4%

Oral Reading Fluency

Students showed an improvement in reading 42.4 words per minute in schools where the Haryana Early Literacy Development Impact Bond was implemented compared to other schools / control schools (30.3 words per minute) where the program was not implemented.

25.2%

36.7%

Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension levels of children in Grade 2 in Haryana improved to 36.7 words per minute in intervention schools compared to non intervention schools as evaluated by Educational Initiatives (Ei) (2022)

85% average score improvement across LLF course participants in the end line as compared to the baseline (Third-party evaluation by CERP (Centre for Education Research and Practice) , 2019)

51% of grade 2 students in Chhattisgarh have achieved grade-level reading comprehension versus 29% of the non-intervention group (External evaluation by Impact Partner in Social Development)

Awards and Accolades

Received 2B Grading (strong delivery capability) from CRISIL (2021)

Won the prestigious GNE Award of Excellence for one of the best NGOs in setting up and promoting impactful social practices (2021)

Awarded ICC Social Impact Award 2024 in the Education category(Large Project) at the prestigious 6th ICC Social Impact Summit & Awards (2024)

Winner of prestigious HCL Grant Edition VII in Education Category after a rigorous selection process among 15K+ applications. (2022)

LLF successfully designed and supported the implementation of India's first-ever Language Mapping survey in almost 30,000 schools with state government of Chhattisgarh (2022)

Contributed to World Bank’s policy approach paper ‘Loud & Clear’ on effective language of instruction for learning (2021)

Pushpa Shukla Assistant Teacher, Government Primary School Sahispara Rajim, Block Fingeshwar, District Gariaband, Chhattisgarh

"One significant improvement as a result of the Prarmbhik Bhasha Shikshan course 2016 is the increase in interactive reading in my class. I have understood better what goes into pre-reading, during reading and post-reading. Now I encourage children to make predictions, I ask questions to stimulate their higher order thinking, I connect their reading with writing tasks and much more. I had never thought about these lines earlier! In fact, now I also ensure a print rich class for my children, even if it means that I need to spend from my own pocket With such change in my classroom practices, I can see clearly the change it is bringing about in my children – how they are becoming more and more confident, more and more engaged and how they are turning into avid readers!”

Angarag Kumar Bhuyan Assistant Teacher, Government Primary School Kanya Ashram Sivpur, Chhattisgarh

“I have undergone the online ‘XahajyogiXamal’ course (Online Cluster Academic Coordinators course) that has been prepared by Language and Learning Foundation for the academic coordinators (State Resource Groups, District Resource Groups, Block Resource Persons, etc.). The course has built my capacity to provide school support as an SRG (State Resource Group) member and upgraded teaching-learning processes in my own school and my professional development. It also has developed my understanding of the relevance of FLN for children in the foundational stage and the ongoing NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) Bharat Mission. The course helped me resolve doubts and clear some concepts. I firmly believe that this course will help our teachers too.”

Ms. Alpa Nigam Head Teacher, Primary School Tilauli, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh

“This course has served as a stepping stone for me. I had been teaching language for many years but the course gave me a new direction and perspective on language teaching. Not only has it helped me flourish as a language teacher but also as a language resource person for the state and the district. I have formed a Professional Learning Community by the name ‘Neev’ through which I am trying to bring about a change in the language teaching of the teachers of my district.”

Pushpa Shukla Assistant Teacher, Government Primary School Sahispara Rajim, Block Fingeshwar, District Gariaband, Chhattisgarh

Angarag Kumar Bhuyan Assistant Teacher, Government Primary School Kanya Ashram Sivpur, Chhattisgarh

OUR PARTNERS

We are as strong as our partnerships

Our partnerships are critical to our work’s success. Here are a few of the key partners supporting us with funding, strategy, program delivery and technology.

2030 MISSION

By 2030, we will reach 35 million children by influencing classroom practices of more than 2 million teachers and teacher educators

Your support can help us achieve this mission