In many national curricula, after the first two years of primary school, instructors spend less time building foundational skills such as reading, number recognition and basic operations, and devote more attention to advanced topics. What happens to the many children who are not yet reading, adding or subtracting at grade level? Unfortunately, they are rarely given an opportunity to catch up. They fall further and further behind. For example, according to UWEZO reports, only 3 out of 10 Grade 3 children in Kenya were able to do Grade 2 work in 2015. In Uganda, 41.4% of children were not able to read syllables or words in a local language, almost 18% were unable to recognise numbers, and 27% were unable to solve any basic operations by Grade 3. The TaRL approach makes time for foundational skills in middle and upper primary school, creating a safety net for the children who have fallen behind.