The international Education for All initiative to bring about universal primary education has resulted in large enrollment increases in lower income countries but with limited outcomes. Due to scarcity in material and human resources, all but the better off often fail to learn basic skills. To improve performance within the very limited capacities of low-income educational systems, instructional interventions ought to be designed according to the ways people retain and recall information most efficiently. Without this research-based line of reasoning, donor and government staff may overestimate students' ability to learn from complex methods and scant practice. Applicable concepts include perceptual learning for scripts, automaticity for basic skills, the limitations of working memory, and formation of cognitive networks in long-term memory. However, education faculties rarely teach these topics. A systematic effort is necessary to popularize cognitive science concepts pertinent to basic skills for staff working in the education sector of lower income countries. Therefore, better understanding and application of learning research is urgently needed if universal primary education is to succeed.