An update to this post:

Now that school is underway, CLiF is looking to rethink its Community Building Grant. We NEED your ideas! We will use them to formulate the components of this year’s Community Building grant. How CLiF can support teachers, parents, librarians, and administrators to succeed with literacy curriculum in a different and evolving learning environment?

WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR IDEAS! Some of the ideas submitted so far include:

• Repurposing apps such as Dominotice, Signal, and class.me.
• Create a free-to-use Extended Family Book Club, connecting extended members of families regardless of where they are, to read books to younger children.
• Creating literacy packs for grandparents to work through with their grandchildren would be an invaluable resource.
• With a small grant, I would buy leveled books for the whole school so we can all be sharing conversation and stories.
• People care more about using products or services they create, and kids will be more interested in reading stories that they create with peers, so I’m recommending kids launch what I’m calling a “Chapter Chain”, where they collectively write a story.

Thanks to IdeaScale Crowd, CLiF is soliciting ideas and compiling a growing list of ideas for, not only managing and enjoying literacy, but also for making it fun and engaging whether remote or in-person. The founder and CEO of IdeaScale wrote:

When I started IdeaScale, I wanted to give a voice to anyone that has a great idea – no matter who the person. For the past ten years, we’ve helped give millions of employees, customers, and constituents a chance to share their ideas from all over the world.

The company has selected CLiF to be one of their first launched campaigns aimed at specific problems related to COVID-19 and, additionally, to ending racism. 

And we want you to share this campaign widely. We want to know what resources classroom teachers, librarians, guidance counselors, parents, and early educators will need to move forward with literacy teaching in this changing and unfamiliar world. 

Here is the link to CLiF’s campaign!

As the world continues to change, we continue to welcome your suggestions of ways CLiF can serve your programs, classrooms, libraries, and students. While we stick by our model of choosing books and meeting inspiring presenters in person, we know, for a while at least, the model needs to shift. We appreciate the willingness of our partners to be creative and tireless in looking for ways to give their students fun access to reading and writing.

What do you need?