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

We partner with state governments 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 a simple text at age 10

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

At Language and Learning Foundation (LLF), we are working alongside the government to close this gap in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) at scale. We do this by

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
We work with state governments to address this problem at scale.

Hover on the coloured states on the map to view our work.

Odisha
Working since 2020
Students Reached: 21,04,692
Teachers Reached: 1,47,124
Schools Reached: 45,327

Since 2015, we have partnered with 10 state governments, across 32 districts, reaching 1.62 crore children and 10.85 lakh teachers.

WE WORK ON 3 FOCUS AREAS

Investing in Continuous Professional Development (CPD) of Teachers & Mentors

Building capacity within the system to sustain foundational learning programs

Through CPD, LLF provides 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.
 

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 by using foundational literacy and numeracy practices.

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 State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) or District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) and State Resource Groups (SRGs) to support teachers and a comprehensive student assessment with a focus on remedial support to struggling learners.

OUR IMPACT

Accountability is everything

We are a data-driven organization and we hold ourselves accountable for the impact of FLN practices by measuring outcomes through third-party evaluations.

Student Performance in Oral

Reading and Comprehension

30.3%
0%
42.4%
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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, where the program was not implemented.

25.2%
0%
36.7%
0%

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, 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)

Inside a classroom:


Playing a game of word-antakshari with class 3 children

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

“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.”

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

“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!”

OUR PARTNERS

We are as strong as our partnerships

At LLF, 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.
 

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)

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2027 MISSION

By 2027, 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

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