What is the name of your organization?
Laboratório de Educação (Labedu)
What is the name of your solution?
Aprender a Estudar Textos
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
An AI-powered professional development platform that co-builds lesson plans with teachers to improve reading comprehension and critical thinking
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
São Paulo
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Brazil
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Globally, over 100 million students fell below minimum reading proficiency levels due to COVID-19 school closures, raising the total number of children with reading difficulties to 584 million in 2020. In Brazil, a 2021 study revealed that 38% of 4th-grade students could not understand basic written texts, and only 13% were considered proficient readers. These numbers reflect a systemic crisis in reading comprehension that disproportionately affects students in low-income, rural, and under-resourced areas—especially in Brazil’s North and Northeast regions. The situation is compounded by a lack of targeted support for 4th and 5th-grade teachers, who often teach multiple subjects and struggle to implement effective literacy practices without specialized training or pedagogical resources.
With AI rapidly becoming embedded in social, political and economic life, children lacking deep reading and critical thinking skills risk being left behind in a world that demands not just access to information, but the ability to question and evaluate it.
Our solution addresses this literacy gap by supporting teachers—who are essential agents of change—with a co-creative, AI-enhanced platform that strengthens their instructional practices and student outcomes.
What is your solution?
Aprender a Estudar Textos is a digital platform that supports 4th and 5th-grade teachers in planning and implementing effective reading comprehension lessons. Built on methodology refined over the past decade with thousands of Brazilian educators, the platform is now being enhanced with a human-in-the-loop AI assistant that co-builds lesson plans with teachers.
Instead of generating ready-made content, the AI engages teachers in a reflective dialogue. First, it uses natural language processing (NLP) to analyze classroom texts, helping them identify challenging features of academic language that may hinder student comprehension. Teachers can then interact with the tool to calibrate learning objectives, choose from diversified teaching strategies, develop effective prompts, and anticipate targeted interventions to scaffold learning. This guided process allows teachers to create lesson plans that are responsive to student needs while expanding their own professional knowledge.
The AI learns from teacher feedback and prior implementation records, improving its recommendations over time. The goal is to empower educators to teach reading as a tool for learning from—not just decoding—text, preparing students for an AI-shaped world that demands literacy, discernment, and critical thinking.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our solution serves public school teachers—primarily 4th and 5th-grade educators—in under-resourced districts in Brazil, where professional development opportunities are scarce and instructional support is limited. Most of these teachers work across multiple subjects without specialized training, and often lack the tools, time or resources to develop effective reading strategies for students struggling with literacy skills.
Our AI assistant will deliver personalized, on-demand pedagogical support to guide the planning and implementation of effective classroom practices. By promoting innovative use of existing materials to engage students across reading proficiency levels, the platform will continue to prepare teachers to make informed decisions, improve their practice and enhance student engagement.
Rather than encourage teachers to simply reproduce existing models, this solution empowers them to become change agents, particularly in areas where systemic inequality has restricted access to quality education. The platform ultimately benefits students—many of whom live in poverty or are first-generation readers—by improving the quality of classroom instruction. With more knowledgeable and confident teachers guiding them, students will develop the deep reading and critical thinking skills needed to succeed academically and fully participate in society.
