Scaling a local language literacy innovation in rural Zambia: Adapting 'Read Smart Cinyanja' for government schools

• In Event: Learning in groups, learning in loops using data for development: Evidence-based action and implementation-informed iteration

Proposal

In Zambia, over 30% of Grade 1-3 students are below minimum levels of proficiency in literacy (EDC, 2024). Delays in the age and grade at which students attain functional literacy skills make future primary years more challenging.

Approaches to literacy lack a systematic approach to teaching in local languages. Students are expected to use their cumulative exposure to print and oral languages to infer the correspondence between various letters and sounds. This is challenging in rural Zambia, where children do not have early exposure to print or see literacy in action in their daily lives.

Impact Network - a non-profit serving over 6,000 students across 40+ non-government schools in Zambia, from early childhood through seventh grade - is testing an innovative project to improve early literacy outcomes. Read Smart Cinyanja uses a systematic approach, rooted in the science of reading, to teach sound-spelling relationships, particularly for rural students with limited exposure to print. The program leverages phonetic charts to help students master letter-sound connections, progressing to reading simple words and stories.

Externally-collected data from USAID’s Let’s Read project showed that students with two years of Read Smart significantly outperformed their peers, with 97% scoring at or above minimum proficiency compared to only 70% across Zambia (Impact Network, 2023).
Currently, Read Smart reaches 1,000 students in eight schools, with funding secured for an additional 40 schools in 2025. A rigorous randomized controlled trial will be conducted in partnership with the American Institutes for Research in 2026, targeting an additional 15 government schools. Scaling Read Smart lays the groundwork to make a strong case for the use of structured pedagogy to improve literacy outcomes across Zambia.

The primary challenge for this next phase is how to adapt Read Smart for government schools, where there is less control over training and implementation. To ensure that Read Smart can effectively be implemented in government settings, Impact Network will work with uBoraBora to experiment with necessary adaptations, such as modifications in teacher training, coaching models, and classroom practices.

In 2024, Impact Network embarked on a structured process of mapping Read Smart’s adaptation. This includes developing a theory of change that reflects the transition to government schools, ideating on testable solutions, designing appropriate research methodologies, and finally, implementing research to validate and refine these adaptations in 2025. This process is grounded in the need to identify and refine the preconditions for success, which differ in government schools, and to explore how these conditions can be met sustainably within existing government systems. The outcome will be a government school-ready version of Read Smart, which defines the conditions necessary for its success, scalability and sustainability.

There is a graveyard of educational interventions that showed significant potential, backed by rigorous evidence, that failed to deliver impact when scaled. As its name implies, the uBoraBora fund is changing this narrative. uBoraBora supports Impact Network to become stronger, while reaching more students.

Author

• David Boateng, PEAS