Delayed feedback is one of education's most persistent problems, and two 19-year-old founders are building a solution that could reshape how students learn to read and write. Almar Tishenko and Max Litvinenka, both sophomores at UATX and fellows at Alpha School, created Reading Rooms, a platform designed to give students immediate feedback on their writing while freeing teachers from the grading burden that consumes their time .

Why Does Waiting Three Weeks for Essay Feedback Actually Hurt Learning?

The problem Almar and Max identified is deceptively simple but profoundly damaging to student growth. During high school, Almar experienced a common frustration: teachers would return essays three weeks after submission. By then, the learning moment had passed. Even worse, students would make the same writing errors on tests because they never received timely correction .

This isn't a teacher problem, Almar explained. Teachers are overwhelmed with grading workloads that leave them no choice but to delay feedback. "Teachers would always give my essay back three weeks later," Almar noted, "and sometimes I might have a test and I don't get any feedback from teachers back before the test. So I'll make the same errors on tests." The result: students suffer, and so do teachers who feel trapped by administrative burden .

Almar

Max brought a similar observation from his international background. When he was in ninth grade in Belarus, he completed a full year of math and physics coursework in just three months. Yet his teachers were skeptical and critical of his accelerated progress, suggesting that traditional education timelines don't match actual learning capacity .

How Does Reading Rooms Actually Work Without Replacing Teachers?

Reading Rooms isn't designed to replace teachers or automate away their expertise. Instead, it uses AI to handle the mechanical parts of feedback so teachers can focus on what they do best: guiding critical thinking and mentoring students. The platform includes features like a homework builder and AI-powered tools that provide students with immediate, detailed feedback on their writing .

The key insight from Almar and Max is that banning AI from education isn't the answer. Instead, educators need to learn how to use AI the right way, in ways that strengthen rather than weaken critical thinking skills. This approach acknowledges a real tension: AI can help with grading, but only if it's implemented thoughtfully .

Steps to Implement AI Feedback Tools Effectively in Your Classroom

• Start with Immediate Feedback: Use AI tools to provide students with same-day or next-day feedback on assignments, closing the gap between submission and learning correction that currently exists in most classrooms.
• Preserve Teacher Judgment: Reserve teacher time for higher-order feedback on critical thinking, argument structure, and creative elements that AI cannot fully evaluate, rather than spending hours on mechanical grading.
• Build Student Agency: Teach students to use AI feedback as a learning tool, not a shortcut, by requiring them to reflect on suggestions and revise their work intentionally.
• Connect to Future Skills: Help students develop the skills they'll actually need in an AI-driven world, including how to work alongside AI tools rather than compete with them.

What Skills Do Students Actually Need in an AI-Driven Future?

Both founders emphasized that education must shift beyond traditional grading and testing. The real question isn't whether students should use AI in their work; it's how to teach them to use it wisely. Reading Rooms is built on the premise that students need to develop critical thinking, communication, and collaboration skills that AI cannot replicate .

Almar and Max's approach reflects a broader realization among educators: the future workforce won't need students who can memorize facts or complete busywork. They'll need people who can think critically, communicate clearly, and work effectively with AI as a tool. By automating routine feedback, Reading Rooms frees up classroom time for these higher-value activities .

What makes Almar and Max's perspective particularly valuable is their age. They're not nostalgic for traditional education; they've lived through its limitations. They're also not naive about AI's risks. Instead, they're pragmatic: education is broken in specific, measurable ways, and AI can fix some of those problems if implemented thoughtfully .

The Reading Rooms platform represents a shift in how EdTech founders are thinking about AI in education. Rather than replacing teachers or overpromising transformation, they're solving a concrete problem: giving teachers time back and giving students feedback when it actually matters. For educators considering how to integrate AI into their classrooms, the lesson is clear: the goal isn't to use AI for its own sake, but to use it to solve real problems that currently limit student learning and teacher effectiveness.