Third-Grade ‘Mini Researchers’ at UF Design AI-Based App To Improve Florida Literacy

UF researchers, in collaboration with third-grade “mini researchers,” have developed an AI-enhanced augmented reality app to support literacy development among Florida students.

Most 8-year-olds spend their school days mastering multiplication, perusing prose and studying the solar system. But through a multi-disciplinary research project in UF’s College of Education, a handful of third-grade “mini researchers” are adding another skill to their academic repertoires: co-designing a mobile app called AR (Augmented Reality) Expeditions, which will launch this year, to inspire Florida elementary school students to read. 

Throughout the state, more than one million students struggle to read at grade level and many lack the motivation to keep up their reading practice. To help close this literacy gap, the Florida Legislature established the New Worlds Reading Initiative in 2021 – a free program administered by the UF Lastinger Center for Learning for students in VPK through fifth grade who are not yet reading at grade level. 

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