Words Alive

Read Aloud Program Read Aloud volunteers share the joy of a good story while helping children develop the cognitive, language and social-emotional skills needed to be capable readers. The program inspires students to be curious, courageous, and compassionate by exploring diverse and relevant books together with caring adults. Words Alive provided weekly read aloud experiences and new books to 2,355 students across 23 partner sites over the 2022-2023 program year. Students took home over 7,000 books, each paired with a custom learning kit to deepen connection to the text.

Adolescent Book Group Adolescent Book Group ignites a love of reading by connecting teenagers with volunteer facilitators to discuss, write, and create projects that bring books alive. As students share perspectives in this safe space, they improve communication skills, gain confidence, and enhance their ability to express themselves authentically. Diverse and contemporary text are explored. Activities include discussion groups, text analysis, writing workshops, author visits. During the 2022-23 program year, Words Alive brought reading alive for 496 teens and tweens and grew 100 of participants personal libraries.

Family Literacy Program Family Literacy Program inspires parents to make exploring books a robust family habit by making reading more playful.Parents receive new childrens books to grow their personal libraries and learn engagement strategies and exploratory activities to read as a family at home. Families report reading more often together, for longer periods of time, and practicing positive reading behaviors with their children. Offered in English and Spanish, this six-week workshop series reached 1,411 families in the 2022-2023 program year and distributed over 8,000 books and learning kits.