Last month, Literacy Lab tutors in DC came together to celebrate early literacy and connect students with the resources they need to be successful readers, even outside of school time.
The team did this via two exciting initiatives:
- A Book Drive
- A Read-A-Thon on social media
One challenge many young children have with books is that they don’t see themselves represented in the characters. In fact, in many children’s books, the characters aren’t even people. The DC team wanted to change that for the pre-K students that are receiving intervention this year. They created a list of pre-K appropriate books that featured children of color as the main characters and asked the community to donate.
In just the one-week-long book drive, the DC team collected and redistributed 106 books directly to the families we serve. Since the book drive, the books have continued to flow into the office and the team is planning another distribution in the fall. If you’d like to contribute, donate on our website and leave a comment to let us know it’s for the DC bookdrive.
As a part of our pre-K model, tutors are trained and coached in delivering highly-engaging read-aloud sessions that bring students into the story and support them in engaging with the book. This helps students build their vocabulary and love of reading. As part of DC’s celebration of early literacy, many tutors created fun and engaging videos of their favorite books that were shared out over the organization’s social media pages in a week-long Read-A-Thon. Through the Read-A-Thon, our DC team added 20 new followers and made 1,900 impressions.
Check out this video of Joyce reading “It’s Okay to be Different” that she created for the Read-A-Thon.
We’re so proud of the creativity and thoughtfulness that went into bringing the Book Drive and Read-A-Thon to fruition. Our DC team is getting kids the support they deserve to keep building their reading skills this year!
