In the last two decades, Latin American and Caribbean countries have worked to expand access to pre-primary and primary education. However, instruments that measure student achievement, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 and the Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (ERCE) 2019, show a significant setback in learning at the regional level. This means that attending school does not guarantee that children will acquire the foundational skills that they ought to during primary education. This situation was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic; by 2022, estimated ‘learning poverty’ had risen, with 79 per cent of 10-year-old girls and boys unable to read and comprehend a simple text. To address the learning lags and losses among students in Grades 3–6, UNICEF encourages schools to adapt their teaching activities to the actual achievement level of each child so that he or she can catch up. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico's Medición Independiente de Aprendizajes (Independent Learning Assessment – MIA) programme has pioneered the application of TaRL principles in relation to redressing learning lags and losses in basic education. This has involved setting up the Campamentos de Aprendizaje MIA (MIA learning interventions), which are evidence-based, short-term educational innovations focused on reading and mathematics. Describing the work of this programme in Mexico provides an opportunity to retrace the steps taken to implement the MIA interventions, to identify the core elements of these interventions, to understand how TaRL principles are applied, and to reflect on the lessons learned in the process.