What’s Happening in Arrecifes? | A Short Documentary on Education by Andrés Rieznik

A country that was once a model for education in Latin America now faces a harsh reality: thousands of boys and girls are finishing elementary school without being able to read or write properly.

But in 2025, an unexpected event occurred. In Arrecifes, some public schools saw an extraordinary improvement in literacy rates in just 12 weeks, tripling the progress made by other schools in the city.

What did they do differently? How can such a difference be explained? Will it be possible to replicate this experience throughout Argentina?

In this mini-documentary, we travel to Arrecifes to retrace the story alongside its protagonists: teachers, families, educational psychologists, and, above all, the children who have rediscovered the joy of reading.
The answer leads us to Kalulu, a scientifically grounded literacy method developed from advances in the neuroscience of reading and adapted to the Spanish of the Río de la Plata by researchers from CONICET, Torcuato Di Tella University, and the Collège de France.

What happened in Arrecifes is not just good local news. It is proof that, even in difficult contexts, literacy can progress rapidly when science, teacher commitment, and work with families are combined.

If you’d like to join the project and help replicate this initiative in other cities across Argentina and Latin America: https://kaluluargentina.org https://kaluluargentina.org
This is just the beginning; we need your help.

We thank the municipality of Arrecifes and especially the mothers who gave us their time and moved us with their stories.

This video was produced by Andrés Rieznik, a neuroscientist and professor at Torcuato Di Tella University.