Comparing Teacher Attitudes Toward Early Grade Reading Reform in Northern and Central Uganda

Donors and policymakers across many countries are currently focused on improving early grade literacy outcomes through structured pedagogy reforms. This paper asks how teachers in three primary schools in two different linguistic settings of Uganda (Luganda and Acholi) perceive and enact early grade reading reforms. Through interviews and classroom observations conducted from October 2022 to March 2023, the paper finds that teachers value and see the benefit of new reading instruction pedagogies and materials, but also identify key misalignments between curricular designs and their classroom and community realities, particularly in the areas of language standardization and examinations. To sustain new reading pedagogies, interventions must account for the cultural politics of pedagogy that shape teachers’ working conditions and decision-making.