Our Story
LitWorld is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening children, families and their communities through literacy & the power of stories.
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Story • Research • Framework • Methodology • Vision
Our Story
Award-winning author, educator, and literacy leader Pam Allyn travelled the world and heard the same wish from children everywhere: to read, write, and share their stories. Families and communities echoed this dream, knowing that literacy opens the door to self-reliance, social mobility, and happiness.
Inspired by this shared and urgent longing, in 2007 Pam assembled a coalition of friends, leaders, advocates and children to create a movement that showed literacy is possible everywhere, no matter one’s background, resources, or zip code. Pam Allyn and founding Board Member Dr. Ernest Morrell created LitWorld’s powerful research-based literacy framework, the 7 Strengths. By creating evidence-based, easily replicable, and genuinely joyful literacy models, LitWorld began to spread these best practices around the world through the powerful model of LitWorld’s signature program LitClub.
In 2010, something miraculous happened. A third grader in a New York City classroom asked Pam if we could make a “birthday party for the read-aloud,” to share the magic of this activity. World Read Aloud Day was born, now celebrated by millions around the world each year.
Recognizing the need to close the summer literacy gap, in 2015 LitWorld created LitCamp, which launched simultaneously in Harlem, New York and Kibera, Kenya. Scholastic, the world’s largest children’s book publishing company, recognized the power of this joyful summer program, and formally published LitCamp, now serving hundreds of thousands of children across the United States.
The massive global success of these initiatives came in large part from LitWorld’s unwavering support for local and primarily women-led community-based organizations. From small circles of storytelling to research-based best practices to global literacy celebrations, LitWorld pioneers new approaches to helping every child and community receive access to literacy for today’s world.
Our Research Base
Pam Allyn and Dr. Ernest Morrell, Director of the Notre Dame Center for Literacy Education, co-authored a book published by Scholastic entitled Every Child a Super Reader. This book, now in its second edition, illuminates the core principles of LitWorld: the 7 Strengths, the cornerstone of all LitWorld programs. The 7 Strengths coalesce skills in human development with literacy learning. They have promoted humane learning and teaching across the world, and are in use in classrooms from the United States to many countries worldwide.
Our Signature Framework
The world-renowned 7 Strengths Framework for literacy learning and well-being was created in 2007 by Pam Allyn and Dr. Ernest Morrell. Informed by years of on-the-ground work both nationally and internationally, the 7 Strengths revolutionized how education leaders and advocates approached the teaching of reading and writing. Grounded in cutting edge social-emotional learning practices, the 7 Strengths examine both the “why” and “how” of literacy development for children and adults of all ages and backgrounds. Today, this framework powers LitWorld’s work, and is utilized by thousands of educators globally to change academic, social, and financial outcomes for children and families for generations to come.
Our Methodology
LitWorld has created a powerful methodology based on one core idea: people who live in their communities know best how literacy will transform their lives. With this, we have created a model that honors and cherishes our partners and that works in tandem with their strengths and ideas.
Partnerships
Seeking and cultivating humane, thoughtful, brave partner organizations who want the children in their communities to have access to the power of literacy.
Programs
Training partner organizations on LitWorld’s evidence-based signature literacy programs they can bring directly to their local communities with immediate impact.
Practices
Implementing, and then refining, alongside teams in the field to ensure programs are meeting the needs of their local communities.
Our Literacy Vision
Literacy is constantly evolving and changing to meet the needs of society. LitWorld stands at the forefront of wanting to do this in a way that feels good for the child. We embrace new literacies to explore them and discover them and to help children find their path to self reliance through them.
Financial Literacy
LitWorld community members can create their own stories of economic independence, build a savings plan, learn to use tools like budget making to “be the story” of their own design in earning, saving, investing, and giving.
Media Literacy
With new technological tools available for people living in rural areas, LitWorld shares ways literacy can be used to convey ideas, acquire knowledge and meet academic & professional needs through different venues and forms, such as social media and AI.
Science of Reading
LitWorld is at the forefront of the new research on the Science of Reading and is training local partners to lead their own teachers to new pathways of thinking on phonics, fluency, comprehension, and more.