Złoty medal za projekt do nauki czytania

An innovative model of learning to read for children: “Effective astonishment. Learning to read triggers thinking” has been awarded twice during the INTARG International Invention and Innovation Fair. It has won a gold medal for the University of Lodz and the award of World Invention Intellectual Property Associations WIIPA. The model has an implementation nature. It is devoted to teach children of preschool and early school age to read and write.

The concept of the model has been elaborated by prof. Monika Wisniewska-Kin from the Department of Pre-school and Early-learning Pedagogy, University of Lodz together with the Team. The model refers to the latest achievements of cognitive psychology and pedagogy, that clearly point to the enormous cognitive potential of children. Children learn through action, movement, speaking and in order to explore the world they use all the senses and engage emotions. In the case of this unique model of learning to read, children construct knowledge about the world of letters and sounds as if casually, thanks to carefully designed materials.

The team in cooperation with the University of Lodz Centre for Technology Transfer has developed a rich set of teaching aids, such as: educational boards, wooden construction blocks, an artistic picture book - Picture Book, a book for teachers, a book for parents and five types of educational games adapted to the teaching method.

And that is not all. An offer of certified trainings for teachers and summer courses for children, which will be run by prof. Monika Wisniewska-Kin and her Research Team, will constitute a supplementation of the presented method. Moreover, the book illustrated by Marta Ignerska has been submitted for the IBBY award in the graphics category in the international competition.

The social impact of the model is also expected, which is particularly important in the era of ‘functional illiteracy’ and the influence of electronic devices on people, especially children. The methodology assumes an increase in children’s interest in writing, reading, communicating, art, music and literature. Thus, it creates an alternative to electronics and the time children spend on using phones or tablets.

A silver medal was won by another project from the University of Lodz that enables individuals with visual impairments to have contact with art with the help of audiodescription of artworks exhibited in the museums in Lodz. The project had been awarded earlier, in 2017, at the LUMEN competition. 

We are really happy about the success of our University community, which confirms creative potential of research teams of the University of Lodz that always work for the public good. Especially impportant solutions are those that meet civilisation challenges. 


University of Lodz is one of the biggest universities in Poland. Its mission is to educate top-class scientists and specialists in numerous fields of humanities, social sciences, natural and exact sciences as well as health sciences. UniLodz cooperates with business, both at the staff level by providing qualified employees as well as at the scientific level, by offering its know-how to enterprises from various areas of economy. University of Lodz is an academic institution open to the world – the number of its international students is constantly growing, while its Polish students, thanks to Exchange programmes, get to know Europe, Asia and travel overseas. The University is a part of Lodz, it operates for and with the community of Lodz by getting involved in many socio-cultural projects. 

Edit: Promotion Centre, UL