13 de July de 2026
On October 13 and 14, the annual meeting of the ProLEER international network of researchers was held for the first time in Latin America, at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago. The event brought together experts and researchers from different countries to debate practices, policies, and research focused on language and reading development in childhood. Labedu was represented by its directors Andrea Guida, Beatriz Cardoso, and Nicole Paulet.
Organized by Professor Alejandra Meneses, the seminar featured plenary sessions and simultaneous panels that addressed topics ranging from recent research on language use in different contexts to teacher training experiences and public policy formulation. One of the highlights was the presentation by Professor Celia Rosemberg, professor at the University of Buenos Aires, on how cultural and socioeconomic variations influence the quality of children’s linguistic interactions, emphasizing the role of community speech in language development.
Another highlight was a panel open to the Chilean academic and educational community, in which representatives from the Chilean Ministry of Education and the Por un Chile que Lee campaign shared the national commitment to reading, writing, and orality as structural pillars of individual development and presented a reference document with essential practices to ensure that all children learn to read in order to learn.
Labedu participated in one of the thematic panels with the Learning and Studying Texts (AET) project, presented by Nicole Paulet. She explains that the initiative generated interest among researchers for articulating research evidence with ongoing teacher training.
“It is always very stimulating to put Labedu’s work in dialogue with research and policies from other Latin American countries. We brought to the debate our experiences with large-scale implementation and monitoring as well as our vision on teacher training and reading instruction, and we returned with new references to enrich the practices of our projects in the language area in innovative ways,” she states.
For Beatriz Cardoso, ProLEER coordinator in Brazil, “the meeting was an opportunity to strengthen dialogue among researchers and professionals in Latin America, reflecting on how reading practices and policies can connect to the realities of each country.”
About ProLEER
The international network of researchers from ProLEER brings together experts from nine countries — Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, the Netherlands, and the United States — and is affiliated with Harvard University. Its objective is to improve educational practices and policies in order to strengthen the learning of children from zero to ten years old. The coordination of the group in Brazil is led by Beatriz Cardoso, director of LabEdu. In addition to the in-person seminar held annually, the group also promotes thematic webinars and dialogues with researchers, education professionals, administrators, and public policy makers who are leaders in the field.