A certain winner: Literacy!
Word Cup participation is free. Your support of the Word Cup fund, however, will not only make you eligible for Word Cup 2.0 prizes—it will also boost the Word Cup Literacy Fund.
Get inspired by the four great projects supported:
Vocabulary Junction 
eSpindle Learning has supported schools, literacy organizations, and afterschool programs with scholarship licenses since its early beginnings. This year, we are raising money to be able to support third grade students throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Why third graders?
Disadvantaged students start school with a vocabulary half the size of their more privileged peers—a gap that often widens throughout elementary school.
By 4th grade texts grow more challenging and students who operate on a limited vocabulary fall behind.
Research has shown that a low vocabulary and resulting lack of comprehension is the core problem for struggling students.
To ensure success in school and a life of opportunity, weak vocabularies have to be strengthened during third grade.
eSpindle Learning's online tutoring tool is designed to provide meaningful and targeted vocabulary practice.
Visit our online slideshow.Think education is expensive? Try ignorance!
***40% of 4th grade students in California, and 65% of inner-city students, do not meet 4th-grade literacy standards. (source ***75% of students who struggle with reading at the end of fourth grade drop out of high school (source). Various states, it is said, look at 4th grade literacy statistics to plan the future need for prison beds. ***Nationwide, every nine seconds a student drops out of school (source). Dropouts are usually either underemployed or unemployable, which frequently leads to a life of crime, consequently costing society on average between $1.7 to $2.3 million per criminal (Cohen, M.A. 1998. The monetary value of saving a high risk youth. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 14[1]).
A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and a loss that hurts society!Vocabulary Junction
Vocabulary acquisition requires more than simple teaching. Focused practice is needed to make sure new words are successfully stored in long-term memory.
When schools are overburdened and parents lack time and English skills, students are often left without the opportunity to bridge the vocabulary divide and join the verbally more advanced students.
The good news is that targeted practice successfully closes the gap, at any age.
We envision a day when every struggling student can use eSpindle coaching to boost verbal skills and confidence and join the more advanced students on the road to success.
Visit our online slideshow.
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The Language Project About 10 years ago, an American EFL teacher, Carol Kresge, was visiting Luang Prabang in Laos. She was impressed by the many young people who would approach her at any opportunity, asking questions about English and trying to learn something.
The United Nations rank Laos as No. 133 on the 177 nation Human Development Index. An astounding 41% of the population in Laos is under the age of 14. Most people get by on $1-2 per day. Books are rare in Laos, even in schools.
The Language Project creates new or supports existing libraries in Laos to help those who are helping themselves. The libraries range in size from a box of books in a village house to a large self-study resource center in the education center of the north, Luang Prabang. While our initial impetus was supporting self-study in English, we have expanded to support self-study in any subject and many languages.
This video, created by students, tells the story of the Language Project quite well:
And here a brief slide show:
Our library and book donation program is unique. Unlike most projects that rely on donated used books and book overruns we carefully choose every book for each library to specifically to meet identified needs and to be most appropriate for the users, community and culture.
We believe that our users are important and that small collections carefully chosen have the greatest value. Our mission is to support all Lao youth in their quest for a brighter future...whether it's studying languages to get a job, learning new skills, or sharing their life and your culture in our "Laos Through Our Own...
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Invisible Children Invisible Children is a nonprofit that was started by three friends who visited Northern Uganda. They witnessed first hand the atrocities committed by Joseph Kony and the suffering a brutal civil war has caused, especially for the children.
Visit the Sacred Heart's page at Invisible Children, with video
Sacred Heart Secondary School was founded in 1934 as the only all-girls boarding school in northern Uganda and became one of the most respected schools in all of Uganda. With 122 students abducted in two separate instances, it has been heavily affected by the war. In addition to the abductions, two students were killed during the second incident, which took place in 1991.
Although the school is Catholic-based, it is now owned and run by the government and welcomes students of all denominations.
All of the 937 students live in the on-campus dormitories. There is a severe shortage of faculty at Sacred Heart considering the large student body.
There is also inadequate classroom space and not have enough desks to accommodate the students; there are not enough latrines; the dormitory floors are sinking and have gaping holes; the girls bathe out in the open air; and there are only five faucets for them all to share.
To date, Invisible Children has provided enough support to refurbish the most immediate plumbing needs, including two boreholes. Two blocks of five stance Ecological Sanitation Latrines have been completed with another two blocks currently under way, as well as a protective perimeter wall around the campus.
We have also supplied Sacred Heart with textbooks in the main compulsory subjects and lab supplies, but not enough to get the school up to the national standard. The staff has received many different types of training.
For the future, the school has proposed some ambitious projects, including the development of a three-story classroom block. The completion of this project will result in class sizes at Sacred Heart hitting the target ratio of 60 students per classroom.
As we forge ahead with this big development, we will continue to support the school?s needs in terms of scholastic supplies, teacher training and the new emotional literacy program.
Sacred Heart is on the rise and making strides towards restoring her former renown.
Another captivating video about Invisible Children's work
Worldfund's Círculos de Leitura - Reading Circles
Literacy rates in Latin America are among the lowest in the world, taking into account relative income levels. Over 55% of Brazilian 15-year-old students tested scored at or below Level 1 on the OECD’s 2006 PISA reading proficiency exam, meaning they are not able to perform even basic reading tasks.
Círculos de Leitura (“Reading Circles”) is a program serving Greater São Paulo. The program was created in 2000 as a much-needed supplement to public school education for underprivileged adolescents living in slums (“favelas”), and has been supported by WorldFund since 2007.
The academic program engages 12- to 19-year-old high-risk youth in small-group reading sessions to supplement their public school education.The aim of Reading Circles is to develop students’ reading and life skills, and thereby expand their educational and work opportunities.
During the weekly after-school and in-school Reading Circles sessions, reading is taught through literature and small group inquiry-based strategies that rely on strong peer leadership and mentoring.
Group leaders are selected from among former participants and are trained to conduct weekly meetings with groups of 10 to 15 students in which they read aloud and discuss literary classics such as William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Homer’s The Odyssey, and Plato’s Symposium.
Before introducing these classics, the students work with selected short stories and books by authors such as José Saramago, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, William Saroyan, João Guimaraes Rosa, and Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis.
The literary works, which are filled with life lessons and universal themes, cover a wide range of human experience. By reading aloud and discussing the texts in small groups, students develop their thinking, listening and interpersonal skills.
In addition, they learn to associate and develop ideas collectively, reflecting on themes such as love, identity, knowledge, violence, family conflict, ethics, leadership, friendship and dreams.
Many of the Reading Circles participants were never read to as children, and begin the program with substantial problems with their concentration and basic listening skills. Their parents have an average of four years of schooling and lack resources to provide them with extra-curricular activities and books.
The following are some of the Reading Circles’ impressive results:
- 85% of participants begin the program reading below their grade level, and nearly 80% improve their reading skills by the end of the first year;
- Teachers report that over 70% of students demonstrate an increased interest in reading and participate in class more frequently;
- Over 90% of participants stay in school and graduate from high school;
- 80% of participants take the vestibular college entrance exam.
In 2009, Worldfund and local corporate donors are providing funding for in-school and after-school programming aimed at reaching 1,800 students at 30 public schools in São Paulo.
In addition to serving as a much-needed supplement to her education, the program, which included assigned reading and group discussions, provided her with life lessons that are guiding her as she plans her future endeavors. Aline now leads a Círculo de Leitura and is passing on her insights to other students.Eighteen-year-old Aline has been an exemplary student and participant in the Reading Circles.
Aline was raised by her grandmother and aunt in São Paulo. Aline attended public schools that not only lacked textbooks and qualified teachers, but also were rife with drugs and violence.
Just when she was about to drop out of school, one of her teachers invited her to attend the weekly after-school Círculos de Leitura sessions.
This once abandoned child is now studying at the university level, and is yet another example of the powerful transformative effect that education can have on impoverished students’ lives.
Worldfund is a New York-based 501(c)(3) organization with the mission to raise the quality of education in Latin America -- the key to transforming lives and breaking the cycle of poverty. Worldfund achieves its mission through providing scholarship funding to exemplary schools and after-school programs serving the poor, and through creating and delivering intensive public school teacher and principal training programs.
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