By: Rastee Chaudhry

This blog was originally posted on the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) website and can be viewed here.

In a recently published white paper, Luminos argues that meaningful inclusion of children with learning differences in education systems must begin with effective instruction that benefits all children.

In an increasingly challenging global environment marked by economic downturns, climate‑induced disasters, escalating conflict and reduced international aid, children’s futures hang in the balance.

The leaders of tomorrow are sitting in today’s classrooms, and the education they receive will shape the futures they are able to build. Ensuring education systems include and work for every child has never been more urgent.

The global push for inclusive education has rightly expanded who belongs in school, but it has largely avoided a harder question: when the majority of children in school do not achieve basic literacy, can access alone be meaningfully called inclusion?

The Push for Inclusion

Historically, mainstream education systems often failed to accommodate children with learning differences which includes specific learning disabilities (such as dyslexia and dyscalculia) or neurological processing challenges (including attention deficits and executive function challenges).

Many were excluded from schools, misidentified or even considered “ineducable,” reflecting limited understanding of learning differences and low expectations at the time—not children’s actual abilities or potential.

In recent decades, global momentum has grown around the right to education for all children, calling for the shift away from separate, specialized schools or programs and toward education systems that include all children in mainstream schools.

Governments have increasingly committed to this goal. Yet efforts have often focused primarily on expanding enrollment and improving physical accessibility.

Far less attention has been given to what meaningful inclusion requires in the classroom, particularly in contexts with low resources, or what we in Luminos refer to as low-learning contexts, where almost all children have low literacy levels, often due to a variety of factors including ineffective instruction.

A Global Learning Crisis

In many education systems, large numbers of children—especially those already facing disadvantage—spend years in school without mastering basic literacy or numeracy.

In low- and middle-income countries, 70% of 10-year-olds cannot read or understand a simple text. This increases to an alarming 90% when just considering low-income countries. This is a pivotal age when children are expected to transition from learning to read to reading to learn.

If children cannot read by age 10, they will struggle to engage with more advanced content, diminishing the effectiveness of later schooling.

For children with learning differences, this gap between access and learning can be particularly stark: presence in the classroom does not guarantee meaningful learning progress.

In education systems where most children are not learning to read, simply ‘including’ children with learning differences is not enough. Truly inclusive systems must support all children to learn with effective instruction and timely support for those that continue to struggle.

The Luminos Learning Differences Approach involves:

• Using evidence-based instructional approaches including phonics-based approaches to teach literacy and structured pedagogy to support teachers
• Fostering inclusive learning environments by prioritizing joyful learning and child safeguarding, and making the best use of available resources to improve learning and inclusion in the classroom
• Monitoring learning outcomes in real time to identify learners in need of additional support
• Providing targeted support as part of whole class teaching and group remediation.

The Luminos Learning Differences Approach

Evidence shows that the approaches proven to boost literacy for children with learning differences like dyslexia are the same approaches that benefit all children learning to read—specifically, comprehensive literacy approaches that incorporate explicit phonics-based instruction.

This is particularly essential when teaching languages with regular letter-sound relationships, as is the case for most African languages.

A 2023 randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Luminos accelerated learning program in Liberia found transformative learning gains for children who completed its phonics-based curriculum.

Specifically, in the 2022–23 school year, children participating in the program progressed from reading an average of four correct words per minute at the start of the program to 29 correct words per minute by the end of the program, compared to eight words per minute for the control group.

The program was evaluated to achieve both transformational levels of learning and high cost-effectiveness.

Children everywhere learn best when they are happy. When children do not feel safe and joyful at school, they are less likely to attend school regularly and succeed academically. Creating a safe, inclusive and joyful environment where children feel comfortable and enjoy the learning process is central to helping all children succeed.

By using joyful and engaging pedagogy, Luminos ensures that learners develop both academic and socio-emotional skills.

An evaluation which followed learners one year after completing the Luminos program in Liberia found that Luminos graduates were more confident, more motivated, and stronger readers than classmates who had not participated in the program.

These findings reflect a core principle of our approach: foundational learning and socio-emotional development are not at odds—they reinforce one another.

When children master key foundational learning skills and see themselves as capable learners, it builds both joy and self-belief.

Identifying and Supporting Learners Who Are Struggling

Many education systems attempt to support children with learning differences by identifying them first, often using tools that signal which students have difficulty mastering specific concepts and then providing targeted interventions.

But in classrooms where most students struggle with basic concepts, screening tools cannot reliably distinguish between learning differences and the effects of ineffective instruction.

This is why caution is needed with dyslexia screening and diagnostic tools in contexts with low learning outcomes and low resources.

When strong, evidence‑based instruction is in place, children progress. And only then can those who continue to struggle be meaningfully identified and supported.

In this process, collecting real-time data on learning outcomes is essential. It enables teachers to see each child as an individual, monitor whether learning is happening, identify what is working, and make timely adjustments to instruction accordingly.

One of the best tools for measuring pre-literacy and early literacy skills in low- and middle-income countries is the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) tool. This tool has been adapted into many languages and is used to check literacy levels across the world. Luminos commissions independent EGRA evaluations in each of our country programs yearly, collating robust data on how well children are learning.

In addition, we develop in-house Rapid Assessment Instruments that test similar skills to EGRA but are simpler to administer, allowing for ongoing monitoring. The purpose of these rapid assessments is not to gather data for data’s sake, but to empower teachers with the insight necessary to see every child as an individual.

When considering how to help learners who are struggling to keep up, the focus is often on targeted or individualized support. However, in low-income settings with large class sizes, limited instructional time, and inadequate materials, providing individualized support may not be realistic.

Thus, incorporating supportive strategies into whole-class teaching is particularly crucial. This can involve instructional materials to provide additional support, pacing of content to accommodate different rates of learning, and using a variety of methods such as games, songs and activities to keep learners engaged longer.

Peer learning and mixed-ability seating is one effective strategy to help children who are struggling. One way to provide additional instruction to children who are struggling is through targeted remediation classes. Learners who struggle to keep up do not necessarily need a different type of instruction, but rather a larger dose of effective instruction.

Essentially a classroom culture that recognizes the ability of all children to learn and fosters collective and collaborative ownership of the learning journey is important.

Reframing inclusion in this way shifts the goal from simply expanding access to transforming how education systems work, ensuring that every child can learn and no child is left behind. Without this shift, schooling may expand, but learning—and opportunity—will remain sparsely distributed.

For more, please read The Luminos Learning Differences Approach: Inclusion of Children with Dyslexia in Literacy Programs in Low-Learning Contexts.