There are many different ways to get to know someone.  In-person communication works best in most cases, but isn’t always possible.  

Another good way is through today’s many forums that imitate the old penpal and note-passing experiences: our online spaces that allow us to communicate immediately with people faraway.  These places include social media like FaceBook, Instagram, and others. They also include private and public chats, like those found in Google Hangouts.

Learning Ally uses Google Hangouts to offer a number of options for getting to know staff and other volunteers.  Besides your STAFF and project-specific Hangouts, we’ve created a number of Hangouts around specific topics (Foreign Languages, TOC Pre-Production, etc.) as well as locality-based Hangouts for volunteers living in the same general area.  

The links to all of these Hangouts can be found at the Volunteer Portal; follow this pathway to find the document with all the links:

Volunteer Portal/Resources/General/Hangouts

Or click on this link:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JsS-XigskhVKSGI0NAV6zY58QNBF_VzjRIsVqI0jHYk/edit

You are welcome to join any of those Hangouts, and you don’t have to live in that area to join a locality-specific Hangout. If you’ll be traveling to Southern California, for example, and would like to try to meet up with staff and volunteers there, join the SoCal Volunteers Hangout and post a message about your upcoming trip.

If you’d like to try to get to know other volunteers in your area and don’t see a link for it, contact Stacie Court (sCourt@LearningAlly.org, or through your STAFF Hangout) and she’ll look into creating one for you.

Over the past few years several groups of volunteers have gotten together for meals and other events.  It just takes one person to get the ball rolling--post in your Hangout and see what happens!

Images: (left) SoCal volunteers plus Don Sheetz get together for a casual lunch;

(right)  Texas current and alumni volunteers get together for coffee

Image: Athens volunteers and staff meet for lunch at a local restaurant

The Great Reading Games of 2020 kicked off this month, and we're off to a great start with over 3 million pages read in just the first two weeks!

The Data…

Schools opted in: 2700

Students Reading: 26,241

Pages Read: 3,293,743  (last week we were almost at 1 million – look at the jump this week!)

Here are the top 5 books that were added to bookshelves and kept our students reading for the first 2 weeks of our 2020 Great Reading Games!  

Something to Tweet About…

Jennifer Womack from Humble ISD shared this tweet and picture:

OMG  Bring the donuts & they will come  Check out all these amazing readers @HumbleISD_FE #readersareleaders #GRG20 @MelissaBoehm3

(Picture is of a class of 26 students.  Each one is holding up a device with their bookshelf)

Priscilla Swanson from APHE shared this tweet and picture:

The Great Reading Games are going strong at APHE! @Learning_Ally #GRG20 Our 3rd graders are leading with the most points and minutes read this week! #weareAPHE

(Picture is of a student reading a book on his laptop.  He has on headphones and is facing the screen.  He is wearing a multi-colored blue hoodie)

Elizabeth Vickery Tweeted and shared this great bulletin board display:

We are ready, with medals and a trophy, for The Great Schultz Reading Games! #GRG20 @Learning_Ally @SchultzKISD @KleinISD #EVERY

(Image is of a bulletin board with the title:  Metamorphosis of a Reader.  It is a tree made out of twisted brown paper with the stages of reading on cards placed on the tree.  The cards read:  1st book, read with pictures, recognize words, you’re a reader.  In the bottom right hand corner is a section that has medals and the Olympic rings with an image reading “The Great Reading Games, Shultz Elementary)

Mrs. Arevalo Tweeted her bulletin board:

Chill morning with great books for @Learning_Ally #GRG20 #wearereaders @Cambridge_AH and we’ve moved ten places up the leaderboard to prove it! CE ️ 

(Image is of a bulletin board.  Last years’ 2019 GRG poster hangs on the left hand side, it reads:  Our school is a Learning Ally Great Reading Games Top 10 Winner!”   In the middle are the words “We are now in 22nd place!”  22nd is on a sticky note that can be replaced each week as they move up on the leaderboard.  A sticky note hangs beneath that reads: “Up from 31st place! WOW!  On the right is a banner that readers: We love our #GRG20 Readers.  Below that hangs a flyer about the games.)

Author Event…..    

“There’s Nothing Weird About Reading” with Dan Gutman

Thursday, February 27th @ 1:00 EST

The event has been updated on the Educator Portal, in our the GRG guide and on our Latest News page.

This event is open to anyone.  While we are encouraging our GRG schools to participate, any school is welcome to join. Learning Ally staff are welcome to join as well.  If you are in a location with others, considering joining together. Dan is a popular children’s book author who has written more than 130 books for kids from kindergarten all the way up to middle school. His work includes the "My Weird School" series, "The Genius Files", and "Flashback Four". Dan will tell us how he HATED to read when he was a kid, and what turned him into a voracious reader.

As you can see, Dan is a fun guy! 

(Picture is of Dan wearing a Mets jersey, standing on one foot and it looks like he is teetering in space over the peninsula of Florida)

Our readers this week increased to 180,815 with over 72 million pages read and 25,860 at frequency – a 21% increase for schools!