Do you remember what it was like to take your seat on your very first day in school, bright eyed and bushy tailed—eager to please?
Imagine, if you will, that once the teacher had gotten your class settled she had turned to you and your classmates and said, “Bonvolu malfermi viajn librojn.”
Imagine she stared at you. Expectant. Waiting…
We’re so thrilled that Bloom has its first Deaf certified trainer that we’re tempted to jump in with several long, enthusiastic paragraphs about it.
But since our goal is to give people the tools to speak for themselves (and since our very first deaf certified Bloom trainer is such a wonderful communicator and a joyous person to experience), here’s Lisseth…
Read MoreOften in development work the approach can be very outside-in, where outsiders come into a community and dictate the sort of work that will be done, then micromanage that work to ensure that the outsider’s goals are achieved. But one of the most satisfying aspects of SIL LEAD’s approach is that we work hard to keep the focus inside-out. In fact, it’s baked into our DNA, with our stated goal of helping local, community-based organizations use their own language to improve their quality of life…
Read MoreOn this International Day of the Girl, we celebrate the work of Juarez & Associates and the Ministry of Education in Guatemala. SIL LEAD has had the privilege of supporting the efforts of these organizations as they’ve used Bloom to produce books for children in the languages they most use and understand. Their Bloom Library bookshelf already contains nearly 600 Bloom books, and so far this year has had over 320,000 reads and over 21,000 downloads…
Read MoreWhile “pandemic” may be the obvious choice for 2020’s “Word of the Year,” another great option would be “pivot.” So many people have had to pivot in so many ways.
One of the ways in which WE have pivoted this past year has been with our Begin With Books project in Mali…
Read More“Lion was king of all the animals. He was also the custodian of the animals’ food chamber. He gave the most food to the large animals and the least food to the small. But one day, Spider, the smallest animal in the kingdom, decided she was tired of always receiving the least. ...”
We all love stories. As Jonathan Gottschall explains in ‘The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human’ : “We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”
Most forms of early education incorporate stories as part of the learning process. So why do we so rarely use this love for stories to help children learn—and even love (!)—math, and see the relevance of doing math…?
Read MoreAs an academic-driven organization, we can at times get caught up in the more technical side of language. But it's important to remember that for a lot of the people we serve—namely, children—language, books, and story are all about fun, play, and curiosity. And that's not something that has to go away when we get older!
Who can forget the immortal words of that otherwise-stodgy chap Lewis Carroll, who wrote…
Read MoreIf you’ve never visited the continent of Africa yourself, you may have some misconceptions about it. Perhaps you didn’t even know it was a continent (not a country)!
Africa is the second largest and second most populous continent on the planet. It’s a place of endless variety and well worth knowing about, filled with not just the pyramids and elephants you’ve seen on television, but also bustling urban centers where innovation and business continue to grow in leaps and bounds.
One great way to explore the many countries of Africa is through their beautiful and varied languages. And there’s no better organization for gaining insight into those languages than our friends over at SIL Africa Learning & Development…
Read MoreWe'd love to hear what brings you to our site today!
