News

On 25 February, the iRead4Skills project – the first HORIZON Europe project coordinated by NOVA FCSH, at the Linguistics Centre of Universidade Nova de Lisboa – brought together more than 400 participants at its final conference.

The event brought together professionals from research institutions and centres, educational institutions and organisations promoting reading and literacy, including policy makers, to discuss the importance of adult literacy and its broader impact on society and to reflect on the contribution of iRead4Skills to the development of these skills.

The main objective of the conference was to present the results of the project, which developed new tools for analysing text complexity with a view to promoting reading skills in adults, and featured testimonials from end users – including adults in training, education professionals and publishers – who highlighted how these tools can support the promotion of literacy in real contexts.

The iRead4Skills tools, designed to support adults with low literacy levels, as well as education, training and culture agents, in selecting appropriate reading materials, also assist in the creation and adaptation of written content so that it can be understood by people with different literacy levels:

Assess Complexity & Writing Assistant – tools that classify the level of complexity of a text and identify linguistic features that may make it difficult to read.

iRead4Skills App – mobile application for classifying texts in a simple way.

iR4S Word Add-in – add-on that can be used directly in Word to create more accessible texts.

iR4S Title Database – list of books and other reading materials classified with iRead4Skills complexity levels.

The tools, presented during the interactive demonstration session of the conference, are open access and available in Portuguese, French, and Spanish on the project website (https://iread4skills.com/tools/).

In addition to presenting the technical and scientific work behind the tools, the interfaces developed in cooperation with end users and the impact of the iRead4Skills project, the conference featured speeches by the Vice-Rector for Pedagogical Innovation at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Prof. Manuela Aparício, Simone Rosini from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Zoltán Várkonyi, President of the European Basic Skills Network, and Valentina Stoeva, President of EURead – European Reading Promotion and Literacy Network.

iRead4Skills is now ending its implementation phase, but will continue to work with national and European partners and stakeholders to develop and provide responsible and scientifically sound technology that contributes to promoting literacy and access to information and culture among the adult public.