GiveBackTime

We love this new NPR article about Alvin Irby and his Barbershop Books program! His nonprofit provides books to barbershops to help get kids excited about reading outside of the classroom. https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/03/29/595180210/turning-kids-into-readers-one-barbershop-at-a-time

Help others reach their literacy goals by volunteering at a local library or a friends of the library group!

Some of our wonderful nonprofit partners are hosting volunteer opportunities within their libraries like Woburn Public Library, Robbins Library, and Roslindale Branch of the Boston Public Library.

Literacy can help break the school-to-prison pipeline. Students who need extra assistance in the classroom are often punished, rather than helped. Programs like Project Literacy and the ACLU are working to end this cycle.

Today would have been Robert Frost's birthday. Literacy is more than reading and writing prose. Literacy allows you to express your emotion through art and poetry as well.

Literacy is empowering! Studies show that literacy boost rates of self-confidence and self-esteem.

Reading allowed to those who can no longer read for themselves can provide them with stress reduction, mental stimulation, memory! Volunteer at your local nursing home or hospice to read aloud to seniors.

Over a long term period, investing in literacy can yield large economic returns. According to UNESCO, economies are increasingly based on knowledge, rather than physical capital or natural resources. The more people with access to knowledge, the greater its likely economic benefits.

Literacy can be so much more than reading and writing!

Civic Literacy is understanding your rights and responsibilities and knowing the pathways to engagement. Brush up on things like your right to free speech and your responsibility to pay taxes at https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learners/citizenship-rights-and-responsibilities

Financial Literacy is having the right knowledge and skills to make investment and banking decisions effectively. Learn more at http://www.pbs.org/your-life-your-money/more/what_is_financial_literacy.php

To learn about other forms of literacy, check out this blog on AdvancingK12 https://www.skyward.com/discover/blog/skyward-blogs/skyward-executive-blog/march-2017/the-top-10-literacies-in-education-today

"A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time—proof that humans can work magic." —Carl Sagan

Based on a UNESCO study, literacy can reduce global poverty.

“If all students in low-income countries left school with elementary reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty. In other words, such basic action as ensuring that those who study reading actually learn it could result in a 12% cut in global poverty.”

Learn about different cultures through reading!

Try "By Day, By Night" by Amy Gibson

Or check out some of the stories in the New York Library's "Around the World in 80+ Children's Books" https://www.nypl.org/blog/2014/07/22/around-world-childrens-books

Are you looking to help others with their reading skills or literacy goals? Look for a local nonprofit that specializes in tutoring or literacy! We can help you find an organization in your area like School on Wheels, Inc., Boston Partners in Education, or Tutoring Plus of Cambridge.

UNESCO and its partners estimate that the infant mortality decreases 9% for every year of education attained by their mothers.

This is because girls and women are able to educate themselves about reproductive and maternal care if they are able to read.

Set aside 30 minutes today to read a book! Finish one that has been on your nightstand for weeks, crack open a new novel, or head to your local library and pick a random book off the shelves.