The First Annual Tweet for Literacy campaign took place in November, 2009, during National Family Literacy Month. Four authors and three mom/book bloggers got together for a month-long Twitter-based event to shine a light on the importance of a family’s reading together.Susan Buetow (@susieqtpies) and I (@LindaThieman) co-chaired the giveaway events, and ended up with 19 winners who divvied up almost $2000 worth of prizes amongst them. The prizes consisted of literacy-related items: large numbers of children’s books contributed by authors, publishers and sponsors; books on parenting, reading skills, and building vocabulary; and other items like flash cards, puzzles and more.
Tweet4Lit, as it came to be known on Twitter, gave a prize set away every two days, with a grand prize awarded on December 1. Each prize pack contained books of all different levels, from pre-school up through young adult.
In the end, we had over 4,400 entries and created a lot of excitement about getting books into the home and making reading together a frequent fun family activity. In January, 2010, Tweet for Literacy will announce the winner of the second half of the grand prize package—one elementary school has been chosen to receive a classroom set of the first two books in the Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story series for third grade. Free classroom materials can be downloaded from the Katie & Kimble blog by teachers and home schoolers to accompany these books.
In November, 2010, Susan and I will be hosting the Second Annual Tweet for Literacy campaign, so look for us then on Twitter!
This post is part of the MAT@USC: Masters in Teaching Hope for the Holidays event. Did you have an experience or witness something in 2009 which gave you hope for the future of American education? If so, please see this post for more information on how to share it.
© 2009 by Linda Thieman
