El Paso: Help kids learn how to read this summer and into the fall

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Have you ever wanted to do something AMAZING to change the world but didn't know where to start?

Here is an opportunity to help underprivileged children, to help under-served children, to help ALL children, and even to help adults who can't read.

Have you ever wanted to be a part of an amazing convergence of forces that is about to change the way the whole world does something?

Have you ever heard anyone talk about a problem and say, "that problem is impossible to fix," or, "that's the way it's always been; there's no changing it."

Well, people say that about world hunger, world peace, and low literacy.

Two years ago, the Barbara Bush Foundation and Dollar General sponsored the $7million XPrize for Adult Literacy to bring in teams from around the world to develop an app-based solution to the adult literacy crisis in America.

The parameters of the contest were that teams had to build an app that would teach reading to illiterate and low literate adults without any assistance from another adult (an "independent learning" app).

At the American Youth Literacy Foundation (dba Youth Lit and YouthLit.org), our focus has always been on children's literacy. We joined this competition but opted out after a year.

However, during that year we learned a lot, and since engaging in that experience, we have seen the future potential for this new, digital approach to the reading crisis.

In the past several months we have made major progress on our own "independent learning," smartphone app for children's literacy. Today we are further along than ever in the creation of this amazing new learning tool that teaches children how to read with little to no intervention required by a grown-up or older sibling or a tutor.

The app is a digital representation of our patented reading curriculum that we have been using nationwide, for the past 10 years, the same curriculum we've been training tutors in, who, in turn, have taught thousands of children how to read.

But now we need volunteers like you to help us put the prototype of the app in the hands of kids who are learning how to read so they can play with it and provide critical feedback that will help us finish the app and make it available to kids everywhere for FREE downloading from the Apple store and Google play.

We believe that this app could literally solve the literacy crisis in America.

If you have an interest in being a reading mentor to a child and want to help with this project, if you like working with kids, if you want to help them learn how to read, if literacy is something that you feel passionate about, and if finding a lasting solution to the literacy crisis is something you want to get involved in, then please reply today. We need your help.

Thank you! We truly look forward to hearing from you : )

Please include a short note telling us about your interest in literacy. We will provide you with a letter explaining our tutoring program and more about this opportunity.

Please be sure to browse our website to more fully understand who we are and how we have been teaching thousands of children to read, nationwide, for the past 11 years.