One of the biggest developmental challenges facing South Africa is the high number is children who do not learn to read for meaning in the early years of school. This is the foundational skill upon which all others build and as such this has become a leading priority for the Departments of Basic Education (DBE). In order to address this challenge, the DBE initiated the Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS) in collaboration with academics at the University of the Witwatersrand, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and Georgetown University (USA). This is a large-scale educational impact evaluation - the biggest in South Africa - and aims to build evidence about what works to improve the teaching and learning of early grade reading in African languages in the country.