How do you create books for young children to help them read in languages they understand? How do you illustrate those books so children can relate to the story? How do you make them free so schools can have greater access to teaching materials?
Webinars in March 2019 shared success stories and lessons learned from four of six Enabling Writers Workshop Programs (EW), which over the past year created 3,000 open-source, decodable and leveled digital books in 15 different languages. The first webinar, on March 7, addressed the work of the EW teams in Indonesia and the Philippines. On March 27, the EW teams in Bangladesh and Nepal discussed language selection, quality assurance issues, and scale up and integration opportunities for the EW model into teacher training curriculum. The Bangladesh and Nepalese teams created 1,600 books between them for children in their countries.
Representing the two teams are: Shahnewaz Khan of the Dhaka Ahsania Mission in Bangladesh and Seema Acharya, World Education, Nepal. Aristarick Lyimo is the Training and Curicculum Specialist for Reading within Reach (REACH). Enabling Writers books are available through the Global Digital Library and the Bloom Library, among other sources.
Implemented by University Research Co.’s REACH project, EW builds on a prize awarded by All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development for Bloom book authoring software that can be used globally to develop decodable and leveled books for use in early grade reading programs. The EW Workshop Program was supported by the ACR:GCD partners—the United States Agency for International Development, World Vision and the Australian government.