650 million people worldwide face barriers in their daily lives preventing them, from learning and communicating through reading, writing or speaking. 200 million are children. We believe that all children should have equal learning opportunities and communicate without barriers, in a lesser restrictive environment. Only then, we’ll have a more inclusive education and a sustainable world.
EKUI is an inclusive methodology for learning how to read and write. Through its multi-sensory approach and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), EKUI offers multiple ways of expressing and representing information, including spelling, Sign Language, Braille code and the Phonetic Alphabet, which makes it a more accessible, motivating and effective methodology for all children, leaving no one behind.
To work the methodology, we use several materials (books, cards) in physical and digital (app) versions. EKUI's work centres on peer relationships and playful learning for children with and without difficulties or abilities.
We train parents and professionals to implement the methodology. Afterwards, we provide mentoring in schools and online, and we evaluate the impact through questionnaires validated by universities (pre and post intervention, with control groups). EKUI works preventively, identifying irregular situations throughout children's development before they become a problem.
After 8 years of implementation, from 2015 to 2023, EKUI has reached more than 700 classes in Portugal and 12 classes in several countries. We trained 33.000 parents and teachers and therapists; we worked directly with 14.343 children and youth from 458 cities in Portugal and 12 in the world. At this moment we are a community of 250.000 people, including some migrant and emigrant communities.
We are scaling through a digital platform (in Portuguese and English), where we have provided training and materials with an universal design, an App and a "do it yourself" manual for using the EKUI methodology.
We want to continue to deliver EKUI in more schools in Portugal and in the world through creating partnerships with universities and teacher training colleges.
Access the platform (EKUI.pt) and sign up for our trainings. You must do because: Impact evaluation has shown that professionals change their teaching practices. Children increased their ability to learn letters, developed phonetic skills and improved empathetic attitudes. EKUI has been considered an inclusive and very effective tool by the educational community, working on empathy-based learning.
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