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‪This study seeks to evaluate the effects of a French programme (PARLER) on students’ learning. The data were collected in five schools for vulnerable pupils in French-speaking Belgium, where this programme was implemented between 2017 and 2020 to improve language development and prevent academic failure in deprived areas. Repeated measures analyses showed significant improvements in three of the target domains (phonological awareness, reading comprehension and vocabulary) after comparison between the two groups. However, no significant effect was observed in fluency. These improvements appear to be linked, on the one hand, to the degree of implementation in classrooms of educational practices recommended by research –in particular structured training in skills considered to be the cognitive pillars of reading– and, on the other, to the focus of attention paid to students with specific needs.‪