- Communities That Read with Children brings together more than 9,000 students, 300 teachers, and families across 172 schools through shared reading, curated book selections, and teacher training to strengthen foundational skills and global competencies.
- By combining children’s literature with classroom practice and family engagement, the initiative fosters reading motivation, fluency, and socialization, according to teachers and students.
- The project includes a rigorous impact evaluation to assess learning outcomes and generate evidence on how shared reading can improve educational trajectories.
One morning in 2024, elementary school students in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Treinta y Tres, Uruguay, shared their thoughts on "The Strange Mother," a book by Korean author Heena Baek. Separated by more than 12,000 kilometers, the children discovered that a story can spark the same questions, the same emotions, the same conversations — regardless of language or continent.
This exchange is part of Communities That Read with Children, an initiative led by Uruguay's National Public Education Administration (ANEP) with support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Korean Fund for Poverty Reduction, and the City of Gothenburg together with Författarcentrum of Sweden. The goal: to promote foundational skills and global competencies through shared reading experiences among families, teachers, and schools across different countries.
The Challenge of Building Global Citizens from the Classroom
"I never liked reading because I didn't know what I gained from it, what kind of mark it left on me. And now I know what it's about, I know it's important." Nicole Pastor is 10 years old and attends School No. 34 in Treinta y Tres, one of four Uruguayan provinces where the Communities That Read with Children project is transforming thousands of children's relationship with reading.
The initiative is based on a research-based premise: reading fiction positively influences empathy, as it allows readers to put themselves in others' shoes and understand emotions and perspectives different from their own. Additionally, children's literature can help children develop prosocial behaviors, such as cooperation and concern for others. Books serve as windows to the world, helping children explore countries, cultures, perspectives, eras, and places different from their own. In an increasingly interconnected world, the ability to understand and value other realities has become as essential as learning to read fluently.
Yet the challenge is twofold. First, critical gaps persist in foundational reading skills. According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 database, more than half (55%) of students in Latin America and the Caribbean cannot understand a simple text. Many families lack books at home or the tools to encourage reading in their children. Without reading fluency, children face barriers to learning any other subject.
Second, educators and caregivers often have a limited understanding of the role literature plays in shaping children's value systems. Evidence shows that shared reading not only improves language development—it also strengthens bonds between parents and children, boosts creativity, enhances cognitive development, and shapes perceptions of the world.
Convinced that reading is the gateway to other competencies, ideas, and cultures, Uruguay decided to tackle these challenges simultaneously, focusing efforts on vulnerable contexts: full-time schools, rural schools, and schools in the Aprender program across Maldonado, Treinta y Tres, Cerro Largo, and Rocha.
The Intervention: A Shared Reading Project
Communities That Read with Children reaches more than 9,000 fourth and fifth graders and 300 teachers across 172 schools. The strategy combines three elements: a rigorous selection of 15 children's and young adult books, teacher training in reading mediation, and the creation of reading communities that also involve families.
The books were selected with a diversity of themes, contexts, and cultures, because reading allows children to question their own conceptions of life, e.g. how parents act, or how to relate to peers.
Each book develops a theme that is associated with some social norm: respect, coexistence, empathy, and inclusion. The selected titles — such as "Eloísa and the Bugs," about a migrant girl who feels like a "weirdo" in her new city — allow children to see themselves reflected in the stories and process their own experiences.
What the Protagonists Say
The results are visible in the classrooms. "It's incredible how interested they become when someone else reads to them," says Aribell Techera, a teacher at School No. 10 in San Carlos. "We held a literary café where we invited families to share a book we had been working on in class."
For Cindy Silvera, a teacher at School No. 34 in Treinta y Tres, the most valuable aspect is the socialization: "Maybe I have one perspective on the book and the child has a completely different one, and they make you see it."
The students themselves report concrete changes. "I've improved my vocabulary quite a bit and the way I read," says one. "What I've improved is my writing, because I used to write really badly. And reading too: I read more fluently, I stop at the periods," adds Santino Portela from School No. 10 in San Carlos.
Victoria Saralegui from School No. 34 in Treinta y Tres describes her experience: "I let myself go, I close my eyes and at first I think, I imagine as if I'm in that story."
Why It Matters
The project includes a rigorous impact evaluation with treatment and control groups that will measure the effects of the intervention on students, teachers, and families. The results emerging in the classrooms are very promising and encourage continuing this type of work over time.
For the IDB, initiatives like this demonstrate that investing in foundational skills — with appropriate materials, trained teachers, and engaged families — can transform educational trajectories in vulnerable contexts.
As Mía Martínez, a student at School No. 34 in Treinta y Tres, puts it: "It makes me want to read much more and makes me curious about what will happen in the next chapter."
That curiosity is precisely the first step.
Learn more in the following video (in Spanish) and on our platform, Skills for Life.