JULY 2008

• Operation REACH in New Orleans, Louisiana is tapping the America Learns Performance Measurement & Learning Network to help support its national expansion.  Through the Gulfsouth Youth Action Corps, Operation REACH engages college students from universities across the country to mentor and engage inner city children in community service and philanthropy.  The Corporation for National and Community Service recently awarded Operation REACH a $1 million AmeriCorps grant to expand beyond New Orleans into a number of additional Gulf Coast states.  The initial four expansion cities are Atlanta, Houston, Birmingham, and Mobile.  The organization plans to expand to all Gulf Coast states within three years.  Learn more about the Gulfsouth Youth Action Corps.
   
• Literacy Volunteers of Greater Syracuse is the latest tutoring organization to invest in the America Learns Performance Measurement & Learning Network.  Literacy Volunteers of Greater Syracuse, a nationally accredited affiliate of ProLiteracy America, involves more than 300 volunteers to help adults reading at or below the 6th grade level become strong readers.  Learn more about the organization!
   
• The Maine Commission for Community Service and the Vermont Commission on National & Community Service are the latest grantmakers to invest in a special version of the Network for service commissions.  The Maine and Vermont commissions, which are responsible for managing their states' AmeriCorps grants, have selected the Network to monitor and track the performance of their programs, all while providing personalized, ongoing support to their AmeriCorps program directors.  These two commissions are joining Kansas, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C. as the fourth and fifth service commissions to invest in the Network.
   

• New cyberbullying toolkit for tutoring and mentoring programs!  Given the rise of cyber harassment (1 in 10 U.S. teens have been bullied online or via their cell phones) and the fact that students often share news about being bullied with their tutors or mentors before talking with their parents or school staff, we're finding it to be essential that volunteer-driven tutoring and mentoring programs equip their volunteers with resources to respond appropriately when students come to them with news that they’re being bullied online.  We worked with teen and Net-Generation expert Vanessa Van Petten to develop a free toolkit that:
   

  • Offers volunteers specific steps they can take to help students address online harassment, and
     

  • Arms volunteers with guidance they can provide to school administrators, parents and guardians if those individuals are unfamiliar with appropriate steps to follow.

  Download the toolkit.
   

• MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership is now featuring the Cyberbullying Toolkit for Tutoring and Mentoring Programs on its website.  MENTOR is the nation's premier advocate and resource for the expansion of mentoring initiatives nationwide.  Links to the Toolkit are now on its Web pages that focus on protecting children's privacy, building strong mentor-mentee relationships, and effective mentor training and orientation resources.
   
• The Resource Center has listed America Learns as a top contributor to its database of resources for programs funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service.  The Resource Center website is the central point for sharing resources among AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps*VISTA, Senior Corps, Citizen Corps and Learn & Serve America programs.  Learn more at www.nationalserviceresources.org.

JUNE 2008

• Vision Literacy in Santa Clara County, California, is the latest adult literacy organization to invest in the America Learns Performance Measurement & Learning Network!  Vision Literacy is the only literacy organization in Silicon Valley to meet all 16 rigorous quality standards required by ProLiteracy America. The organization relies heavily on some 200 volunteers, most working as tutors in 12 cities through one of five programs (the Community Literacy Program, the Family Literacy Program, the Health Literacy Program, the Corrections Literacy Program, and the Leadership Development Program) . Its programs feature individual and small-group tutoring sessions that focus on specific learner needs. Learn more about Vision Literacy!
   
• Dr. Susan Ellis-Weismer, a professor of communicative disorders and Associate Dean for Research for the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, included our first book for families and family literacy programs, Bonding While Learning, in a suggested book list for a presentation she recently gave entitled, "What Does that Gurgle Really Mean?  Early Language and Your Toddler."  The presentation was a part of the Appleton Education Foundation and Wisconsin Academy Presentation Series.
   
• BellaOnline, the largest not-for-profit website dedicated to women's issues, recently highlighted Bonding While Learning as recommended reading in the article, Affirmations -- Expressing Affection and Acceptance.  Readers of Bonding While Learning, know that the book not only helps parents foster a love of reading in their children and develop their children's reading skills, but also offers concrete guidance on how to support and affirm children's learning and progress.  Most importantly, the book also offers details on how parents can support their children when they seem to not be developing skills or understanding at a pace parents expect. 
  
  BellaOnline has also featured Bonding While Learning in two other articles' recommended reading lists:
  • Grandparents of Children With Special Needs
  • Homeschooling Children With Special Needs
     
• On June 18th, America Learns Founder & CEO, Gary Kosman, presented two workshops on America Learns' work with adult literacy programs at READ/San Diego's 18th Annual Tutor Conference.  The conference provides opportunities for tutors, teachers and literacy professionals from across California and the nation to learn and practice innovative teaching skills.   

MAY 2008

• Opportunity to Read, an adult literacy program of the Watsonville Public Library in Northern California is the latest literacy volunteering program to invest in the America Learns Network.  A nationally-accredited program, Opportunity to Read currently has thirty volunteers and three professional instructors providing one-on-one and small-group instruction to more than eighty adult learners, most of whom work in the agriculture industry.  Learn more about Opportunity to Read!
   
• Children's Disabilities Information (www.childrensdisabilities.info), the website that empowers parents of children with disabilities and special needs, just interviewed Bonding While Learning co-author Grace May Chiu about helping children with learning disabilities learn to read.  Bonding While Learning is our first book for families and family literacy programs.  Check out the interview.

APRIL 2008

• Meet Amber Jones, a coach with IUPUI's America Reads and America Counts Programs, and the author of the April 2008 America Learns Strategy of the Month.  An undergrad Social Work major, Amber took a strategy out of a professional social worker's toolkit and applied it beautifully to her tutoring practice.  The strategy involves creating an "eco-map", a great tool that volunteer tutors and mentors can use to better understand their student or mentee's overall attitudes towards life and school, as well their home environments and family relationships.  Check out the strategy today!

MARCH 2008

• Strategies created by two Literacy Network of Greater Los Angeles volunteers have been named March's America Learns Strategies of the Month. This marks the first time that strategies for adult learners have earned this recognition. It also marks the first time that America Learns decided to honor two strategies in a single month. Throughout March, these strategies will be available not only to the tutors, mentors and student teachers America Learns serves, but also to the thousands of teachers, tutors, mentors and parents worldwide who subscribe to America Learns' Strategy of the Month newsletter. 
  
  Update: The U.S. Department of Education's Office of English Language Acquisition has joined us in recognizing the authors of March 2008's America Learns Strategies of the Month by sharing the news on its website.  Canada's National Adult Literacy Database and the Mid-Continent Comprehensive Center also posted news about the strategies on their websites.
   
• Jewish Family Services' Mentor Connection program in Detroit is the latest organization to invest in the America Learns Network!  Mentor Connection is a non-sectarian program of JFS that takes a proactive approach to reach at-risk youth by pairing them with adult mentors who provide attention and guidance to support their development into healthy, productive adults. The program consists of a large community mentoring effort serving youth 7-17 in Oakland County.
   
• UrbanBaby, the website providing parents with their dose of hip info on where to shop, play, eat, travel and have fun with their kids, highlighted Bonding While Learning in its daily email on March 4th!  The e-mail discusses how parents can use Bonding While Learning to help their children cultivate a lifetime love of reading. 

FEBRUARY 2008

• Meet Holly Simon, a University of Michigan freshman and author of the February 2008 America Learns Strategy of the Month.  Holly developed an incredibly engaging PowerPoint deck for her elementary-aged students.  Her interactive system helped her students practice reading sight words, review the present and past tense forms of words, manipulate word chunks and more.  Our favorite aspect of this strategy is that it's so flexible.  Anybody familiar with creating PowerPoint presentations can edit Holly's file and turn it into a game to review and practice math skills or study for a vocabulary test. 
   
• Release Ministries in Omaha, Nebraska is the latest organization to begin using the America Learns Network.  The Release Ministries Juvenile Justice Mentoring Program focuses on empowering youth in the juvenile justice and foster care systems to grow into their full potential through a vital relationship with a caring adult and their loving Heavenly Father.  Mentors and mentees meet for one to three hours each week, developing trust and friendship that over time provides youth with the tools and support needed to succeed in life.  Release Ministries is the first faith-based organization we've had the opportunity to serve.  Learn more about this program!
   
• Children's Disabilities Information (www.childrensdisabilities.info), the website that empowers parents of children with disabilities and special needs, just posted a review of Bonding While Learning on its website.  Here's what they had to say: "This book provides lots of practical activities to share with toddlers and preschoolers to encourage speech, early reading, and interactive communication. Letters, sounds, listening skills, decoding, and more are encouraged through games and exercises which are easy to set up at home, daycare or school. Bonding and personal interaction are also encouraged through give and take lessons between parent or teacher and the young child. This is a great resource for young children with special needs, including speech, dyslexia, or autism."  Learn more about Bonding While Learning.
   
• ComeUnity (www.comeunity.com), the outstanding website for parenting, special needs and adoption resources, just reviewed Bonding While Learning!  Here's what they had to say: "This book provides a series of practical activities to share with toddlers and preschoolers to encourage speech, early reading, and interactive communication. Letters, sounds, listening skills, decoding, and more are demonstrated through games and exercises which are easy to set up at home, daycare or school. As they encourage close participation and use examples from daily life, many of the activities would be helpful for older adopted children who are learning a second language."  Learn more about Bonding While Learning.

JANUARY 2008

• Providence College in Providence Rhode Island is the newest member of the America Learns Network Community!  The College is piloting the Network this semester with Political Science service learning students who serve in after-school programs in partnership with the Providence After School Alliance.  Learn more about Providence College!
   
• Meet Emily Earnhart, an outstanding AmeriCorps member with Keystone SMILES AmeriCorps in Pennsylvania and the author of the January 2008 America Learns Strategy of the Month.  Emily's strategy helps struggling readers and writers tackle the common assignment of writing a number of sentences with specific types of words while ensuring that the selected words are only used once across all of the sentences.  This type of assignment often causes unnecessary stress and anxiety for struggling readers and writers who sometimes spend a ton of time checking to make sure that they haven’t repeated words as they write, as opposed to really learning about word types.  Emily’s straightforward strategy helped her eighth grade student organize and complete his assignment while focusing on learning, as opposed to focusing on and stressing over which words he had already used.  

DECEMBER 2007

• Lindsay Ferrier, one of today's most popular mommy bloggers, just reviewed our first resource for families, Bonding While Learning!  Here's what she had to say:

Bonding While Learning is soooo up my alley. Each page contains a simple, easy-to-follow activity you can do with your three-to-six-year-old to encourage reading success and improve your relationship with him or her. Best of all, it's not a set of drills, like another book I bought recently. Your child won't even realize you're engaging in reading preparation. As a mom who is also home preschooling my daughter, I love books like this one that give me new ideas for learning activities with [my daughter], particularly when there's not a whole lot of blah blah psychology writing to accompany it. Great book!

Check out Lindsay's blog, Suburban Turmoil.

• iParenting.com is highlighting the special wintertime activities Bonding While Learning co-authors Grace May Chiu and Gary Kosman recently posted to the Bonding While Learning website.  The imaginative activities will be freely available through February 2008.  The activities help younger children learn their letters by building snowmen and help older children practice spelling by "painting the snow" with food coloring.  iParenting.com is the award-winning network of more than 40 Web sites devoted to the entire family lifecycle – from preconception through the teenage years.  Read iParenting.com's article about our wintertime activities.
   
• Meet Adrienne Dubiecki, the author of December's America Learns Strategy of the Month and the Academic Mentoring Program Manager with Children Uniting Nations/mPLAY (the Mentoring Partnership for Los Angeles Youth).  Adrienne’s strategy offers an innovative way for tutors, mentors and their students/mentees to use Venn diagrams to get to know one another, and to even track the development of their relationship and one another’s personal growth.  Adrienne first used this strategy with a group of mentors and mentees in one of mPLAY’s Saturday School programs on the first day that everyone met.  "It was such a success that I now incorporate it into the handouts that all mentors get before they are matched," she said. 

NOVEMBER 2007

• English at Work is the latest adult literacy and the first Texas-based organization to begin using the America Learns Network!  The organization's mission is to provide English language instruction to low income workers at the job site throughout Austin.  In the past 2 years, English at Work has served over 150 students at 14 host businesses in the service, construction, and health care industries. Classes are taught for an hour to an hour and a half three to five times a week over a six-week period. Course titles include “Intro to English,” “Customer Service,” and “Workplace Health and Safety.”   The curriculum emphasizes listening and speaking skills and incorporates materials from the business in which the course is taught.  Lessons are also specific to Austin and incorporate local bus schedules, information on public officials, and visits from English at Work partner agencies.  Learn more about this dynamic organization at www.austinenglish.org.
   
• November's America Learns Strategy of the Month tackles an issue rarely covered in training workshops: what to do to help a child who is grieving the death of a family member or friend.  Our team teamed up with OUR HOUSE, a non-profit grief support center in Los Angeles, to create this strategy.  The strategy offers guidance to educators and mentors around what they can do to help a child who is grieving the death of a family member or friend.  We created the resource in response to a challenge that a mentor we serve in North Carolina was struggling with. 
   
• GrowIndiana AmeriCorps is one of the newest members of the America Learns Network, and is the second statewide AmeriCorps program to join the Network!  GrowIndiana AmeriCorps is a brand new, statewide initiative that focuses on three critical issues in the state: increasing the awareness for the importance of math, increasing the math performance among middle school students, and retaining college graduates within the state with math-based degrees (e.g., engineering, business, executive management, life-sciences, etc.).  AmeriCorps members are providing tutoring services to sixth through eighth graders while local business professionals are mentoring college students.  The program is administered through Indiana Campus Compact, and is coordinated by a number of higher education institutions across the state.  Learn more about Indiana Campus Compact and its programs.
   
• The Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning in Lexington, Kentucky is beginning to use the Network!  The Carnegie Center is a non-profit family learning center devoted to helping all citizens improve their quality of life. The organization's open-door policy invites people young and old to learn something new.  The Center offers seasonal classes in Writing, Computer Literacy, and Foreign Language; tutoring for students ages 6-16; vibrant youth and family programs and exhibits, readings, and other arts-related events designed to encourage among Central Kentuckians an appreciation for all art forms and for learning in general.  Learn more about this dyanmic organization.

OCTOBER 2007

• On October 26th and 27th, America Learns Network members from coast to coast attended the first ever America Learns Network Member Conference at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.  The conference was sponsored by Lulu.com and was held in partnership with SCALE, the Student Coalition for Action in Literacy Education.  Network members spent their time developing strategic plans to take their use of the Network to the next level and co-innovated a number of new features being added to the Network over the next year.  The most important new feature involves enhancing the Network's one-of-a-kind journal and survey system to provide even more meaningful and timely support to their educators and mentors while significantly reducing time and money spent on tracking, data collection, reporting, performance measurement and evaluation.
   
• Campus Compact's new publication highlights the America Learns Network and America Learns Network member Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI).  Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 1,100 college and university presidents — representing some 6 million students — dedicated to promoting community service, civic engagement, and service-learning in higher education.  The organization's new publication, Earn, Learn, and Serve: Getting the Most from Community Service Federal Work-Study, provides the first thorough overview of community service Federal Work Study, including profiles of 40 college and university programs and information about how Federal Work-Study is being leveraged to promote student leadership, service-learning, civic engagement, and campus-community partnerships at campuses nationwide.
  
  Highlighting Network Member IUPUI
  The publication highlights IUPUI's America Reads and America Counts programs as models of student retention, teamwork, and institutional collaboration.  Read more at http://www.compact.org/fws/chapters/models/iupui.
  
  Highlighting the America Learns Network
  The publication's "Tools for Managing Community Service Federal Work-Study Programs" section lists the America Learns Network as the only resource for America Reads FWS Tutoring Programs.  Learn more at http://www.compact.org/fws/appendix/america_reads/.
   
• Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, a resource sponsored by the YWCA of Greensboro (North Carolina), the YWCA of High Point, and Senior Resources of Guilford, recently published a glowing review of our book for families, Bonding While Learning.  Here's how the review begins: "So many grandparents wish they could help their young grandchildren either prepare for or succeed in school, but are unsure how to go about doing so or even what exactly, they should be doing.  Well worry no more!  The solution comes in the form of the activity book Bonding While Learning by Gary Lee Kosman and Grace May Chiu."  Read the complete review.
   
• Join America Learns team members and Bonding While Learning co-authors, Gary Kosman and Grace Chiu, at a special Los Angeles book signing from 1:30 to 2:15 on Sunday, October 21st.  Gary and Grace will be participating in Dutton's annual Preschool Sunday event during which the store hosts some of L.A.'s best children's and parenting authors and donates sale proceeds to local schools.  At the signing, Gary and Grace will demonstrate a number of Bonding While Learning activities and will also share just-for-fall reading activities with parents.  Children visiting the authors will also be able to make special reading puppets, which they'll use with their parents during story times and even during long trips in the car. 
  
  Dutton's is located at:
  975 San Vicente Blvd.
  Los Angeles, CA 90049 [map]
  310.476.6263
   
• Meet Sarah Gaw, the author of October's America Learns Strategy of the Month.  Sarah developed a wonderful strategy that further developed her students' appreciation for reading and books, improved their comprehension skills, improved their speaking skills, and gave her students a meaningful opportunity to practice listening to one another during group discussions.  Sarah developed and implemented the strategy earlier this year when she served as the After School Program Coordinator at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston, MA. 
   
• The Oak Park Business & Education Alliance has begun to use the Network with its Faces of the Future Mentoring Program.  The Oak Park Business and Education Alliance is a continuation of a successful pilot project initiated by Consumers Energy to help schools graduate students for tomorrow’s workforce. Established in 1993, the Alliance is a nonprofit organization of educators, businesses and government entities that provide assistance to the Oak Park School District to improve the educational experience of individual students. As part of the District’s Improvement Plan, the Alliance initiates and supports activities that motivate students to meet performance goals toward graduation and ultimately college or advanced vocational training in preparation for tomorrow’s employment.
  
  Faces of the Future Mentoring Program is an innovative, motivational, strategic planning and mentoring program using an award-winning program produced by Winning Futures. Adult mentors from the business community work with second-semester Oak Park eighth grade students through their first semester of ninth grade.  We encourage you learn more about the Alliance and its programs.
   
• The Mississippi Early Literacy Corps - Southern Division has joined the America Learns Network!  Continuing the success Mississippi State University has had using the Network with the original Mississippi Early Literacy Corps program, the University is extending the use of the Network to its newest AmeriCorps program.  MELC - Southern Division is a partnership between Mississippi State University and selected Gulf Coast Mississippi communities that helps children attending public kindergarten, licensed child care centers, and Head Start programs develop the skills needed for reading success. 
   
• The Clinton Global Initiative's new mycommitment.org website now references America Learns as a resource individuals can use to make real change in their communities.  This recognition follows the piece President Clinton wrote about our work in his newest book, Giving.

SEPTEMBER 2007

• In his newest book, Bill Clinton recognizes America Learns for its accomplishments in helping tutors and mentors "improve, evaluate and report on the performance of their students in the least costly and time-consuming ways available."  Clinton writes, "America Learns...is a skills-giver, enabling anyone who can read well and has an hour or two a week to volunteer to do so with the confidence that he or she can really help."  Read the complete excerpt.
   
• Meet Wendy Tigerman, a WriteGirl mentor in Los Angeles, CA and the author of the September 2007 America Learns Strategy of the Month!  Wendy created an engaging, energy-filled strategy that teaches young people that their own lives can be an inspiration for meaningful writing.  Here's how Wendy summarizes her strategy.  "You need to write what you know.  Write what you see.  Write what you hate.  Finally, you are the center of the universe."

AUGUST 2007

• Ashland University's PROUD tutoring and mentoring program is now using the America Learns Network!  Since 1993, Partners Reaching Out for Ultimate Development (PROUD) has paired Ashland students with at-risk youth from the Ashland City Schools.  The one-on-one contact established with the youth promotes self-esteem and improved academic achievements.  Learn more about the program today!
   
• 53% of all working-age adults in Los Angeles cannot read well enough to use a bus schedule or to complete a job application.  To help address this massive challenge, the Literacy Network of Greater Los Angeles is now using the America Learns Network to help increase the impact of its adult literacy providers. 
  
  The Literacy Network strengthens and builds the capacity of literacy providers in the Greater Los Angeles community by recruiting and training volunteers to help improve the basic literacy skills of adults within and outside of the workforce.  Providers include public schools, libraries, WorkSource Centers, and other community-based organizations.  Learn more about the organization.
   
• The North Carolina Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators has invited Duke University and America Learns to share how the America Learns Network is supporting Duke's teacher preparation program.  Learn more about September's presentation.

JULY 2007

• Meet Lindsay Thomas, an AmeriCorps member with Keystone SMILES AmeriCorps in Greenville, PA and the author of the July 2007 America Learns Strategy of the Month!  Lindsay created an engaging yet simple activity to help students learn and practice reading sight words without relying on boring methods such as flash card drills or just writing down sentences using one word at a time. Check out Lindsay's strategy in the 2006-07 Strategy of the Month Library!
   
• Neighbors Bookstore in South Lake Tahoe has again invited Bonding While Learning co-author and America Learns CEO Gary Kosman to sign books.  Gary will also be sharing activities that parents can use to teach their children to read and write well and to fall in love with reading while growing even closer with their children.
  
  Where: Neighbors Bookstore  (4000 Lake Tahoe Blvd. in the Village Center)
  When: 2 - 5 PM
  For questions, call: 310-689-0542
   
• Check out Bonding While Learning's co-authors on TV this month!  KidsTalk: Voices of Tomorrow, a multi-award winning show giving Log Angeles residents a taste of how youth think about their lives is dedicating an entire show to the ways Bonding While Learning is being used in a school district-funded family resource center!  Check out the show to see Gary Kosman and Grace Chiu demonstrate a number of the activities from the book.
  
  When: July 2nd & July 4th
  Channel: LA36 or www.la36.org

JUNE 2007

• America Learns is pleased to announce the publication of a case study tracking the implementation and use of the America Learns Network within America Reads - Mississippi.  ARM is the largest AmeriCorps program of its kind, involving 350 AmeriCorps members in tutoring and mentoring services at 80 sites across the state.  Read the study.
  
  The Center for WhatWorks is highlighting the case study on its website.  Here's some of what the Center had to say about the study's highlights:

[America Reads - Mississippi] has been able to fulfill its needs of collecting important data and best tutoring strategies coming out of its program through the use of the America Learns Network. ARM now is able to share its best practices when tutors need them and can measure tutor impact in a single step- the completion of a survey form, journal, or reflection log. Through the process of collecting reporting and measurement data, ARM provides individualized support to its tutors. Staff can track, monitor and evaluate data which ARM needs to provide tutors with timely training, guidance, and support.

• Meet Emily Marcus, an outstanding AmeriCorps member with City of Lakes AmeriCorps in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Emily shows us that being a great tutor involves far more than possessing the skills to help a child learn to read or to become better at math. Knowing how to redirect distracted and active students' energy is just as important.  Emily's strategy will be available on our public website for all of June and will be permanently available to members of the America Learns Network community.  Check out Emily's strategy as a part of the 2006-07 Strategy of the Month Library.
   
• America Learns is now reaching 20,000 students worldwide.  With the addition of Learning Enterprises as the newest member of the America Learns Network community, our organization is now reaching 20,000 children in 14 countries across four continents.  Learning Enterprises will begin to use the Network this month to simultaneously collect its volunteer teachers' best practices, share those practices with volunteers in near real time, and measure the progress its 120 volunteers are making. 
   
• We just learned that one of the most prestigious periodicals for parents home schooling their children gave a glowing review of Bonding While Learning!  Here's some of what the reviewer wrote:

"This book has been a welcome addition to our household. I had been worried that my youngest of three sons (age 4) was not getting enough individual attention in our homeschooling....  Bonding While Learning provided the perfect opportunity to spend quality time cuddling with him on the couch while feeling confident that I was "officially" educating him....

"It is exciting to see an educational resource that values the time parents spend with children, promoting "bonding" as an important component in academic progress. I also appreciate the fact that Bonding While Learning is not stuck on an age-appropriate timeline. Realizing that children do not learn in a cookie-cutter style, the authors encourage parents to use the activities in any order that works for them and their unique child....

"I would recommend this resource to someone who is beginning to homeschool a young child but has fears about "doing it right." The book is "schoolish" enough for parents to trust they are really teaching their child, yet homey enough to build warm memories between parent and child."

You can check out the full review here.

• Go Baby® is again highlighting Bonding While Learning in its quarterly e-newsletter!  Go Baby® (www.gobaby.com) is a New York-based, mommy-driven company that designs hip and functional products focused on getting mommy out the door, looking good and having fun.  The company included our tips for Reading While Road Tripping in its newsletter to offer its customers an engaging, educational way to keep their children happy during long periods in the car without relying upon DVDs, video games or endless cycles of a single album or playlist.  Check out Reading While Road Tripping.  Order your copy of Bonding While Learning today!

MAY 2007

• The iParenting Media Awards, one of the most prestigious award programs for parenting products, has honored America Learns’ newest book, Bonding While Learning, by naming it an “Excellent Product of 2007.”  Read the entire story. 
   
• Meet Deborah Berry, America Reads - Mississippi AmeriCorps member and author of May 2007's National Strategy of the Month!  Deborah's strategy is a clear standout. The strategy helped her students learn to alphabetize words, an important practice that her students were struggling with for some time. If you're like us, when you here the term "alphabetize," feelings of boredom may come to mind. Deborah removed that negative connotation with her strategy, creating an engaging, meaningful activity to help her students fully understand the concept.  Check out Deborah's strategy in the 2006-07 Strategy of the Month Library!

APRIL 2007

• Meet Courtney Harkness, University of Michigan grad student and author of April 2007's National Strategy of the Month!  While studying cellular, molecular and developmental biology, Courtney has been tutoring at a charter school in Ypsilanti with the University of Michigan America Reads Tutoring Corps. Much of her time has involved helping her elementary school students learn to read words made up of specific sounds and vowel endings. Her students, for example, had a difficult time reading words ending in -ing and -s.  Check out Courtney's strategy in the 2006-07 Strategy of the Month Library!
  
  As Courtney brainstormed on ways to build her students' skills in this area, inspiration hit: the famous Plinko game on CBS's longstanding game show, The Price is Right. 
   
• Campus Compact is highlighting Courtney Harkness' achievement on its website!  Campus Compact is a coalition of nearly 1,100 college and university presidents — representing some 5 million students — who are committed to fulfilling the public purposes of higher education.  As the only national association dedicated to this mission, Campus Compact is a leader in building civic engagement into campus and academic life. Read what the organization has to say about Courtney and her strategy.
   
• Stacy DeBroff, the CEO of Mom Central, Inc. and renowned  parenting guru and author, just published an independent review of Bonding While Learning!  She concludes her review by writing, "Finally, anyone looking for educational activities to do with their kids has to look no further than this book!"  Read the complete review on Mom Central. 
  
  Visit the official Bonding While Learning website.
   
• On Saturday April 7th, The Entrepreneur Mentor Society hosted a forum for its members to learn from America Learns founder & CEO Gary Kosman about the organization's development and social impact.  EMS is a non-profit organization that is educating, promoting, encouraging, networking and developing aspiring entrepreneurs throughout Southern California. Through a series of meetings with successful business owners and executives, one-on-one mentorship and internship opportunities, members of the organization gain insights into the crucial elements necessary to become a successful entrepreneur.  Learn more about the organization.
   
• America Learns is now accepting applications for its 2007 Summer Internship program.  Learn more about the two positions we're filling for this competitive program at Idealist.org.

MARCH 2007

• Salisbury University's ShoreCorps/PALS AmeriCorps program is the newest member of the America Learns Network Community!  ShoreCorps/PALS (Partnership for Adolescents on the Lower Shore) works with 28 agencies across eight counties along Maryland's Eastern Shore.  The program's AmeriCorps members serve in positions providing tutoring/mentoring services, conflict resolution training, parent and family support services, health education programs, counseling services for pregnant adolescents, establishing peer support groups, conducting community outreach activities and recruiting volunteers to support project activities.  Learn more about ShoreCorps/PALS!
   

• America Learns and long-time America Learns Network member Long Beach BLAST will be presenting a workshop together at the National AfterSchool Association Conference in Phoenix on March 22nd.  America Learns and BLAST representatives will share a case study they created tracking Long Beach BLAST's tremendous growth over the past several years, and America Learns' substantial role in that growth.  The case study doubles as an “action study,” providing other organizations with a plethora of opportunities to reflect upon and begin charting their own plans for the future around tutor/mentor/staff training, monitoring and support, evaluation, and internal communications.  Workshop participants will be motivated to dig deep into their organizations’ health by reading about and listening to the brutally honest assessment of BLAST’s own ups and downs.  The workshop will take place in room 42 of the South Exhibit Hall. 
   

• Go Baby® is highlighting Bonding While Learning in its spring e-newsletter!  Go Baby® (www.gobaby.com) is a New York-based, mommy-driven company that designs hip and functional products focused on getting mommy out the door, looking good and having fun.  When describing Bonding While Learning, its reviewers write, "The best thing about Bonding While Learning is that it arms parents with the tools they need to make educational time interactive and fun -- at home, at the park or on-the-go."  Read the entire review (pdf).   
   

• Bonding While Learning earns special honor, standing out among more than 5,300 children's and parenting titles on Lulu.com.  Since 2002, Lulu.com, the premiere online destination for publishing, has seen its customers create and publish more than 4,500 children's books and 750 parenting books.  In honor of its first annual celebration of Read Across America – the National Education Association’s annual effort to motivate children to read 365 days a year – Lulu.com has highlighted four key books to encourage parents and children to bring the joy of reading into their daily routine. 
  
  In conjunction with this goal, Lulu.com has officially selected America Learns' newest book, Bonding While Learning, as one of the four “Read Across America” must-reads for 2007.  Bonding While Learning is the only book in the parenting category included in this prestigious list. 
  
  Read the entire article.

FEBRUARY 2007

• On Saturday, February 24th from 2 to 5 p.m., Neighbors Bookstore in South Lake Tahoe, CA will host the first book signing for Bonding While Learning, our newest publication.  Come meet Gary Kosman, one of the book's authors and the founder and CEO of America Learns.  Read an article about the signing by the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
   
• The Mississippi Early Literacy Corps (MELC) has joined the America Learns Network!  MELC is a partnership between Mississippi State University and selected Mississippi communities that helps children attending public kindergarten, licensed child care centers, and Head Start programs develop the skills needed for reading success.  All of MELC's tutors are AmeriCorps members.  Learn more about the program.
   
• Bonding While Learning sells out of its first print run in just one month!  Throughout January, parents, grandparents, preschools, teachers, family literacy specialists and AmeriCorps programs purchased copies of the book.  One mother purchased 28 copies, buying one copy for every parent in her son's preschool class as a gift.  Another mom who purchased a single copy for herself and her daughter inspired other parents at her daughter's school to order copies.  A preschool in Los Angeles has asked all of its teachers to use the book's activities in their classrooms.  A kindergarten teacher in Miami, Florida is using the activities in her classroom.  A YMCA used portions of the book to train parents how to help their children learn to read.
   
  A new shipment arrived on February 5th and we're now fulfilling all backorders and new orders.  Learn more about Bonding While Learning today!
   
• Congratulations to Deven Kaufman, author of the February 2007 America Learns National Strategy of the Month.  Deven has accomplished more in his 20 years than many people accomplish in their lives.  How many 20 year olds do you know who have already designed multiple houses and buildings that have been built?  Beyond that, this Architecture Technology student at IUPUI has also created a solution to a challenge that so many tutors and academic mentors face: How can one truly understand the academic issues a student needs to address when one is not an expert educator, does not spend a lot of time with the student, and does not have on-demand access to the student's teacher?  Read a press release announcing Deven's accomplishment, and check out Deven's strategy in the 2006-07 Strategy of the Month Library!

JANUARY 2007

• Duke University has joined the America Learns Network!  One hundred twenty five students that tutor in the Durham, North Carolina community will be using the Network this semester.  The students using the Network are involved in the university's service-learning, teacher preparation, or America Reads/Counts programs.  In October 2006, Duke was named to the first President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.  Learn about some of the programs using the Network here, here and here!
   
• Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis has begun to pilot the Network!  Seventy tutors in its America Reads * America Counts program are participating in the pilot, evaluating the Network for full implementation in the fall.  Learn more about IUPUI's America Reads * America Counts program.
   
• Bonding While Learning, our newest book, is now shipping!  Since going on sale during the first week of January, the book is close to selling out its first run.  See what the excitement is about, and order your copy today at a discount before it hits bookstores next month!
   
• Youth Service America featured our January 2007 National Strategy (and Podcast) of the Month in its e-newsletter on January 22nd!  The newsletter focused on our accomplishments of creating brief, high-quality podcasts that college students can use to become better teachers, tutors and mentors.  Gary Kosman, America Learns founder and CEO, commented that, "We need to deliver ongoing training and support materials where today's college students are.  We obviously cannot expect college students to always have time or make time for in person training activities or to read lengthy guidebooks.  They're just so busy.  Our training podcasts deliver the relevant, meaningful material that teacher prep students, tutors and mentors need, when they need it.  We're deeply honored that Youth Service America chose to highlight this aspect of our services."
   
• The Resource Center is featuring The 2005-06 National Strategy of the Month Library on its homepage between January 11th and January 18th.  The Library provides tutors and mentors with access to the top tutoring and mentoring strategies added to the America Learns Network during the 2005-06 school year.  The Resource Center is the central point for sharing resources with Corporation for National & Community Service-funded programs.  Check out the Library today. 

DECEMBER 2006

• Syndee Kraus, a mentor with Blue Ribbon Mentor Advocate, and Noah Smith, a tutor with the University of Michigan America Reads Tutoring Corps, have been selected to join the National Strategy Review Panel.  
  
  It's essential that the voices of the tutors and mentors we serve are heard loud and clear when we produce resources for the America Learns Network's National Strategy Database.  For that reason, in 2006 we created the National Strategy Review Panel.  The Panel is composed of top notch tutors and mentors who review and offer detailed, straightforward feedback on early drafts of our strategies.  This process helps to ensure that every strategy we create is relevant, practical and user friendly to researchers and to daily practitioners.  Learn more about our strategy development process.
   
• Congratulations to Cailin Trinh, author of the December 2006 America Learns National Strategy of the Month.  Cailin is a freshman at UC Berkeley and tutor with Bears United in Literacy Development (BUILD).  (BUILD is a program of the Cal Corps Public Service Center.)  Given the task of building her middle school students’ vocabulary, she found her students getting bored with her tutoring sessions.  “Because they couldn't make a connection,” said Cailin, “they didn't seem to be interested.”  So rather than continuing to work on drills and flashcards, Cailin found a way to deeply engage her students.  Check out Cailin's strategy in the 2006-07 Strategy of the Month Library!

NOVEMBER 2006

• Congratulations to Paul Dean, author of the November 2006 America Learns National Strategy of the Month.  Paul is a junior at Yale University and mentor with the Dwight Hall Academic Mentoring Program at Yale (DHAMPY).  Paul notes that he joined DHAMPY "because I was very interested in education, specifically urban education, and I liked the idea of being involved in a program where I could learn first-hand about the challenges of urban education, but at the same time hopefully be helpful to some kids in New Haven."  Check out Paul's strategy in the 2006-07 Strategy of the Month Library!
   
• America Learns announces the pre-order period for Bonding While Learning, the company's book for families with children aged three to six.  Bonding While Learning offers parents more than 50 proven, easy to do activities that simultaneously build parent-child relationships while developing children's early reading and writing skills.  Look inside, read early feedback about, and pre-order the book today.
   
• For the second year in a row, the University of Southern California Entrepreneur and Venture Management Association has invited America Learns to participate in the Southern California Entrepreneurs Roundtable.  Thirty entrepreneurs will join MBA students and faculty from across Southern California to help potential entrepreneurs learn from those who have traveled the same path.  The even will be held at USC's Marshall School of Business on November 16th   Learn more.  
   

• America Learns' CEO, Gary Kosman, will present a workshop at this year's Read. Write. Act. conference at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (November 3rd & 4th).   This is the only national conference devoted to the interests and concerns of campus-based literacy programs. Campus literacy leaders and representatives from across the nation gather each fall for an intensive weekend of workshops, panel discussions, networking events and reflection sessions. Participants come to share information, learn new skills, challenge assumptions, and develop ideas to create more participatory literacy programs.  Gary will discuss how college- and university-based literacy programs are using the America Learns Network to multiply the impact of their programs while reducing program directors stress levels and workloads.  Learn more about the conference.

OCTOBER 2006

• Public/Private Ventures has joined the Network to support more than 50 Supplemental Education Services (SES) providers using the "YET" model in Ohio, Massachusetts and Maryland. The Youth Education for Tomorrow (YET) model was created by Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) in 2000 for after-school providers in Philadelphia.  The YET model is an outcome-based, 90 minute balanced literacy model.  The YET model was designed by leading after-school researchers and literacy experts to provide engaging instruction an hour and a half per day on a four- to five-day schedule.  The 100 Book Challenge®, a research-proven reading program, is used to compliment the YET curriculum.  The 100 Book Challenge® offers a library of leveled books for students so that each student is choosing books from their independent reading level.  Since June of 2000, YET Centers throughout the nation have served over 7,300 children in over 420 after-school classrooms.    

  In 2002, through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, P/PV expanded its work by offering technical assistance to organizations looking to become approved Supplemental Educational Services (SES) providers.  SES is a free after-school tutoring program offered to students who are attending Title I schools that are not achieving Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).  P/PV offers application and contracting assistance as well as professional development and technical assistance with the YET literacy model.  P/PV has worked with or continues to work with sites in Akron, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, and Youngstown, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Boston, Massachusetts.
   

• Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nevada County has joined the Network, the second BBBS affiliate to do so.   Hundreds of Nevada County children have been matched with a Big Brother or Big Sister (“Big”) since the organization was founded in 1981. The agency currently has 50 children matched in its community-based program and 21 children matched in its school-based program.  The agency serves children between the ages of six and 18, most of whom are from single-parent, low-income families.  Learn more about this wonderful organization.
   
• Project READ, a program of Lewis and Clark Community College's Adult Education Division, has joined the Network!  Project READ identifies adults with low literacy skills and matches them with trained volunteer tutors.  These volunteers come from all walks of life: college students, lawyers, soldiers, homemakers, teachers, librarians, and engineers. What they have in common is a desire to empower adult learners by working side by side with them in their quest for the freedom and dignity that comes with literacy.  Learn more about Lewis and Clark Community College.
   
• America Learns' CEO will discuss his work around launching an educational justice company with the MIT Sloan chapter of Net Impact.  Net Impact’s mission is to improve the world by growing and strengthening a network of new leaders who are using the power of business to make a positive net social, environmental, and economic impact. With more than 125 student and professional chapters on 4 continents in 75 cities and 80 graduate schools, a central office in San Francisco, and partnerships with leading for and nonprofit organizations, Net Impact enables members to use business for social good in their graduate education, careers, and communities.  Learn more about the MIT chapter.

SEPTEMBER 2006

• Children Uniting Nations is now using the Network!  CUN is a progressive voice for children at risk, with a primary focus on children in out of home care.  The organization not only fights for foster youth at the local, state and federal government levels, but also has a dynamic service arm that recruits and trains community volunteers to mentor these children. Its mentoring arm, known as mPLAY -- Mentoring Partnership for Los Angeles Youth -- currently works with two high schools, one middle school and number of residential facilities.  The organization has recruited thousands of mentors who have provided ongoing emotional and educational support to thousands of foster youth throughout Los Angeles County.
   

• America Learns' CEO has been invited to present at the second annual “Keeping the Promise to At-Risk Youth” conference, a day-long forum for policy makers and academics to discuss how local, state and federal laws and policies can better serve America’s foster children.  The conference is hosted by Children Uniting Nations (CUN), a not for profit organization dedicated to providing mentors to at-risk youth, in collaboration with DLA Piper, the Rand Corporation, the University of Southern California, and the Woodrow Wilson Center.  Last year’s conference resulted in recommendations for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Bill that were adopted in both the House and the Senate, and in bicameral support for the Los Angeles Mentoring Model (LAMM).  This year’s event will call America to public service.  As the nation’s juvenile crime rates grow in relation to emancipating foster children who have had no support, we must take action by providing our neediest children with the consistent, caring relationships they need to succeed in education and in life.  Learn more.
   

• Meet Sherry Martin, author of the September 2006 America Learns National Strategy of the Month.  Sherry is a second year AmeriCorps member with America Reads - Mississippi.  She tutors in the Natchez-Adams School District, where she has been working for the past eight years.  Prior to joining AmeriCorps, she worked in the district's Parent Center, where she would help parents identify enrichment materials for their children.  Sherry's strategy helps young children learn to recognize uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet in an incredibly engaging way.  Though the strategy is no longer available on our National Strategy of the Month web page, you can purchase it along with all of the other strategies highlighted during the 2005-06 school year. To do so, please click here.

AUGUST 2006

• The YMCA of Greater St. Louis' Literacy Council is the most recent organization to join the Network!  By tutoring adults who have low reading skills or are immigrants from other countries, the YMCA Literacy Council hopes to get the learners' reading skills high enough to take GED classes. Once a learner has reached a 6th grade reading level, he or she is referred to other programs to attain higher skills.  The YMCA Literacy Council will use the Strategy Network to build its institutional memory of which tutoring strategies work in its program while providing its tutors with access to hundreds of on-demand tutoring resources.  Learn more about the program.
   
• America Learns and The Resource Center have established an exciting new partnership to provide national service participants and other community-based organizations with free access to top notch tutoring and mentoring resources. Beginning this month, National Strategies of the Month contributed by AmeriCorps members via the Network will be permanently stored in The Resource Center's Effective Practices Collection, making those strategies available to the entire national service community. The Resource Center is the central point for sharing resources with Corporation for National & Community Service-funded programs. Access the Effective Practices Collection.
   
• Since we released the 2005-06 National Strategy of the Month Library last month, tutoring and mentoring programs have purchased over 500 copies for volunteers, AmeriCorps members and staff. The Library contains innovative, engaging, effective strategies that tutors and mentors can use to jumpstart their service efforts this coming school year.  Order your copy today.
   
• Meet Elena Kamenetzky, author of the August 2006 America Learns National Strategy of the Month.  Elena just finished her AmeriCorps term of service with City of Lakes AmeriCorps in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is on her way to Japan to teach English through the JET program.  When we first read Elena's strategy, one of our team members said, "I wish I had written that!"   The strategy helps students keep track of and organize character information while reading.  Though the strategy is no longer available on our National Strategy of the Month web page, you can purchase it along with all of the other strategies highlighted during the 2005-06 school year. To do so, please click here.

JULY 2006

• You can now purchase a print copy of the 2005-06 National Strategy of the Month Library.  Get all of the proven, step-by-step tutoring and mentoring strategies we highlighted during the 2005-06 school year for just $12.99 plus shipping.  You'll even receive a set of the key materials you need to begin using the strategies right away.  If you didn’t receive all of the strategies over the past school year or want a printed version of the strategies and the materials you need to use them, this opportunity is especially for you.  You'll also receive one bonus strategy from the America Learns National Strategy Database.  Order your copy today.
   

• America Learns is partnering with the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation to bring youth serving programs two free webinars that will help them take their programs to the next level.  The webinars will occur on July 21st and July 26th and will cover High/Scope's new Youth Program Quality Assessment (PQA).  The PQA is a validated instrument designed to measure the quality of youth programs and to identify staff training needs.  America Learns Network members will also learn how they can use the PQA to get even more out of the Network. 
   
• Meet Virginia Racuher, author of the July 2006 National Strategy of the Month.  Virginia, a Koreh L.A. reading partner, created an exciting, engaging game for students who need extra practice recognizing and reading common words they encounter while reading.  We've loved playing Virginia's game, called Racetrack, and we think you and your students will too!  Though the strategy is no longer available on our National Strategy of the Month web page, you can purchase it here.

JUNE 2006

• America Learns will be exhibiting at this month's Conference on Volunteering and Service in Seattle, WA June 17 - 20.  We invite you to stop by our booth -- number 338 -- to say hello, check out many of the Network's new features, and learn how tutoring and mentoring programs nationwide are using the Network to provide personalized support to their tutors/mentors while significantly reducing staff members' data collection, reporting and evaluation workloads.
   
• Meet Syndee Kraus and Graig Meyer, authors of the June 2006 National Strategy of the Month.  Syndee is a long time mentor with Blue Ribbon Mentor-Advocate (BRMA) in Chapel Hill, NC, and Graig is BRMA's program coordinator.  Their strategy helps long-term tutors and mentors reenergize and push their relationships with students to the next level.  Though the strategy is no longer available on our National Strategy of the Month web page, you can purchase it here.

MAY 2006

• We're thrilled to announce that Keystone SMILES has begun to use the Network.  Keystone SMILES originated as a service-learning project in the Keystone School District (Western Pennsylvania) in 1990 and became an AmeriCorps*State program in October 1994.  It is considered one of the most innovative service-learning organizations in the nation.  SMILES implements over 20 different programs addressing child development, at-risk youth, school support, service learning, fitness and recreation, human needs, environment, senior citizens and adult education.  Learn more about Keystone SMILES.
   
• Sarah Kurachek of City of Lakes AmeriCorps and Andy Kwok of the University of Michigan America Reads Tutoring Corps have been selected as the founding members of the first National Strategy Review Panel.  We believe it's essential for the voices of tutors and mentors we serve to be heard loud and clear whenever we produce strategies for the Network.  While we've always solicited feedback on the resources we create from tutors and mentors, we've found a need to formalize the process as we've grown to serve thousands of tutors and mentors nationwide.  Sarah Kurachek and Andy Kwok went through a rigorous selection process to become the first two members of the National Strategy Review Panel, which will be composed of top-notch tutors and mentors who have the experience and the sharp analytical and writing abilities needed to help ensure that all Network resources continue to be relevant, practical and user-friendly.  Learn more about