First Literacy Grant Funded Projects

First Literacy Grant Funded Projects support innovative ideas for Adult Basic Education (ABE) program or curriculum initiatives. Our grants offer both financial and administrative support and improve the classroom experience for both adult learners and their teachers. Previous funded projects are highlighted below.

To receive important updates about First Literacy Grant Funded Projects, join our mailing list. We also encourage you to visit our library of online resources, where First Literacy Grant Funded Project Presentations can be accessed and adapted for your own programs.

For questions about First Literacy Grants, contact Bryan McCormick, Program Director, at 617.482.3336 x113 or bmccormick@firstliteracy.org.

2024-2025 First Literacy Grant Funded Projects

This year we are proud to award our first replication grant! This grant will make it possible for a successful and previously funded First Literacy grant project to be replicated in a new community – impacting even more adult learners throughout Massachusetts.

Please note, the 2024 Spotlight on Innovation in Adult Basic Education will highlight the 2023-2024 grant recipients. To view these projects please scroll to the bottom of the page. 

ESOL Curriculum Sharing – REPLICATION GRANT RECIPIENT!

Casserly House and ABCD Boston-Roslindale ESOL will partner to increase shifting needs of immigrant neighbors and adult learners on social determinants of health as reported by ESOL adult learners. With our local partner, ABCD Boston-ESOL in Roslindale, Casserly House will maximize the benefit of having ESOL lesson plans and annual community workshops on social determinants of health.  In sharing the teaching tools and best practices in ESOL teaching strategies that were developed with the initial First Literacy Grant in 2023-2024, Casserly House hopes to increase the scale exponentially, benefitting far more immigrants in our neighborhood than would be possible for Casserly House to engage by itself.

Partner Program: Casserly House
Replication Program: Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) – Roslindale
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 32
Award amount: $1,000 (awarded to Casserly House and ABCD- Roslindale)

Mother/Child Reading Program for Incarcerated Women

The Criminal Justice Organization (CJO) of Hampden County’s mission statement is “to implement, develop, create and/or expand correctional programs in the areas of education, counseling and vocational programming…”. This project is a mother/child reading program for women incarcerated at the Western Mass Regional Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee, MA. The goal of the program is to improve literacy skills for both the mother and child(ren) involved in the program. Funds from the grant will provide age-appropriate books for children and assist the mothers in learning to read aloud with their children. Both virtual and in-person sessions will be available to the families. In addition, the funds will help support the transportation expenses for families bringing the children to their mothers and will offer a stipend to graduate level students studying early childhood education and are supporting the mothers who will read books with their child(ren). The CJO firmly believes that a renewed interest in reading will generate a genuine enthusiasm for learning and help to offset learning losses that occurred during the Covid pandemic.

Partner Program: Criminal Justice Organization of Hampden County, Inc.
Community: Western Massachusetts
Students Served: 40-50
Award Amount: $7,500

Casserly House ESOL Consultant

The Casserly House will work with a consultant to assist all volunteer ESOL staff in the development of curriculum that will serve the newly arrived immigrant with little or no English-speaking skills. The goal is for the consultant to introduce volunteer teachers to effective teaching tools and best practices in ESOL teaching strategies and student needs assessment. The consultant will also collaborate with community partners to offer “teachable” workshops for neighborhood immigrants to address priority needs, such as affordable housing, workplace equity and rights, and other topics of concern. The desired outcome of the project is to sharpen volunteer teaching skills that will benefit the newly arrived immigrants and offer them real-life resources to help them in their daily lives.

Partner Program: Casserly House
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 32
Award amount: $3,750 (2nd year funding)

¡Sí, Se Puede! (Yes, You Can!) Passing That Last HiSET Exam

MUA has 45 HiSET and Pre-HSE seats funded by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and matched by foundations. In any given year, MUA has roughly 14 HiSET attainments. However, there are a dozen or more students who have “just one more exam to go” and have separated from the program due to motivation, pregnancy, work conflicts, and/or housing issues. The goal of ¡Sí, Se Puede! (Yes, You Can!) Passing That Last HiSET Exam is to provide students with a weekly class, asynchronous practice exams, HiSET resources, motivation, and coaching to pass that last exam and obtain their HiSET certificates, ultimately leading to a next step such as college, job training, employment, and/or advanced employment.

Partner Program: Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA)
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 248
Award amount: $4,536

Students Are Leaders

Adult learners come to the Community Learning Center (CLC) with a wealth of experience and interests; however, given their part-time attendance and multiple outside commitments, they are limited in their ability to develop and share their knowledge outside of their classrooms. Students Are Leaders will provide leadership skills, development, and activities to and with interested students. The program will focus on cultural sharing, activities to learn about and address the climate crisis, information about rights and responsibilities, and communication within and outside the CLC about the programs offered. Through training and subsequent presentations, students will develop transferable leadership skills and strengthen the sense of community and belonging within the program. The goal is greater student engagement and persistence, strengthening each student’s voice in program decision making, and for students to become ambassadors informing and engaging the entire student community through workshops and presentations.

Partner Program: The Friends of the Community Learning Center
Community: Metro North
Students Served: 800
Award amount: $4,350

Juvenile (16+) Justice Diversion Program

The Juvenile Justice Diversion Program aims to create a comprehensive program that will prevent youth and young adults from having a criminal record. The program will hold first time offenders accountable for their behavior without resorting to legal sanctions, court involvement and oversight, or threat of fines, fees, or incarceration. The program will include preventative and interventive work with young adults, direct contact with local law enforcement chiefs, judges and prosecutors to design Individualized Diversion Plans for at-risk students to equitize opportunities for this population, prevent future contact with the court system, increase educational and employment outcomes, and create pathways for success.

Partner Program: Charlestown Adult Education
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 185
Award amount: $7,500 (2nd year of funding)

Participatory Action Research Project Focused on ABE Recruitment, Enrollment, and Persistence

The Literacy Project (TLP) seeks to implement an action research project, led by our adult learning students, to collect information relative to recruitment, enrollment and persistence in a rural adult basic education program. This organizational project will help to strengthen The Literacy Project’s policies and programs by learning what adult learners want and need to be successful in increasing their literacy skills so they may achieve their education and career goals. We anticipate 15 students (3 from each of TLP’s five classrooms) will participate in a series of workshops, led by a TLP teacher, to create a market research tool, implement the tool, analyze the data and present their results. This project will ultimately increase the literacy skills of adult learners as they work on their writing skills by creating interview questions and exploring best practices in research projects.

Partner Program: Literacy Project
Community: Western Massachusetts
Students Served: 225
Award amount: $11,025

2023-2024 First Literacy Grant Funded Projects
Casserly House ESOL Consultant

The Casserly House will hire a consultant to assist all volunteer ESOL staff in the development of curriculum that will serve the newly arrived immigrant with little or no English-speaking skills. The goal is for the consultant to introduce volunteer teachers to effective teaching tools and best practices in ESOL teaching strategies and student needs assessment. The consultant will also collaborate with community partners to offer “teachable” workshops for neighborhood immigrants to address priority needs, such as affordable housing, workplace equity and rights, and other topics of concern. The desired outcome of the project is to sharpen volunteer teaching skills that will benefit the newly arrived immigrants and offer them real-life resources to help them in their daily lives.

Partner Program: Casserly House
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 24
Award Amount: $7,500

Juvenile (16+) Justice Diversion Program

The Juvenile Justice Diversion Program aims to create a comprehensive program that will prevent youth and young adults from having a criminal record. The program will hold first time offenders accountable for their behavior without resorting to legal sanctions, court involvement and oversight, or threat of fines, fees, or incarceration. The program will include preventative and interventive work with young adults, direct contact with local law enforcement chiefs, judges and prosecutors to design Individualized Diversion Plans for at-risk students to equitize opportunities for this population, prevent future contact with the court system, increase educational and employment outcomes, and create pathways for success.

Partner Program: Charlestown Adult Education
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 170
Award amount: $15,000

Strengthening Family Literacy Curriculum and Assessment

In April 2022, IINE-Lowell’s Family Literacy class was launched to address the English language and literacy learning needs of adult Afghan women who have not yet developed literacy in their primary languages. Our project will address two challenges students face in this class. An assessment tool used by adult English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs in Massachusetts with pre-literate students, only measures gains in English speaking and listening, we plan to pilot a new tool, the ABLE Assessment. This new tool has been designed to assess progress in English reading among this population. Second, more needs to be done to help students independently increase English language and internet exposure and practice. We plan to design a curriculum component using the USA Learns online platform documenting students’ use of the program and impact on learning gains.

Partner Program: International Institute of New England-Lowell
Community: Metro North
Students Served: 197
Award amount: $5,000

ESL for Educational Settings: Curriculum Design and Implementation

During the second year of this project, Friends of the Hernández will continue the work of developing and implementing ESL curriculum for those in the Primeras Maestras Program. This unique program trains low-income Spanish speaking parents to become dual language educators. The curriculum has a specific focus on classroom management, social-emotional learning, literacy instruction, and restorative practices. It also specifically addresses language needs related to certification tests for targeted career areas.

Partner Program: Friends of the Rafael Hernández School
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 37
Award amount: $3,750 (2nd year of funding)

2022-2023 First Literacy Grant Funded Projects
The English Connection: Promoting Resiliency of Self, Community, and Planet

The purpose of this seminar is to take an inquiry-driven, action-oriented look at power and justice as it relates to interrelated issues impacting students, communities, and the planet. This seminar will host guest speakers monthly. Students who have advanced beyond their terminal ESOL level but wish to continue their language development studies will be best suited for this project-based seminar.

Partner Program: The Jamaica Plain Community Center’s Adult Learning Program
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 136
Award Amount: $5,000

Environmental Education for a Better Life

Two high level ESOL students will develop a high beginning/low intermediate ESOL contextualized curriculum aimed at educating ESOL students about three major areas of environmental concern: solid waste, energy, and water. The project will include collaborations with the City of Lawrence and Groundwork Lawrence to bring local environmental resources and information to the program.

Partner Program: The Notre Dame Education Center-Lawrence, Inc
Community: Metro North
Students Served: 400
Award amount: $5,983

ESL for Educational Settings: Curriculum Design and Implementation

The Primeras Maestras Program at the Rafael Hernández Dual Language School in Roxbury, Massachusetts trains low income, unemployed, or under-employed immigrant parents as bilingual educators, leveraging their native Spanish language fluency as an asset for student learning. As parents participate in the program, they take English as a Second Language (ESOL) classes and financial literacy classes to strengthen their employability and establish their financial independence. This program will develop an English as a Second Language curriculum to specifically address the language skills participants need in educational settings.

Partner Program: Friends of the Rafael Hernández School
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 16
Award amount: $7,500

English for Employment Advancement

This flexible program offers curricula and materials that will allow Adult Basic Education organizations to engage with local businesses to offer English Language classes to their incumbent workers.

Partner Program: Pathways Adult Education & Training, Inc.
Community: Metro North
Students Served: 300
Award amount: $5,649

We/Us/Ours: Inclusive Language and Practices Project

Queer and non-binary people, as well as a wide variety of ways of being a family, are completely unrepresented in published ESOL curriculum and textbooks. We/Us/Ours: Inclusive Language and Practices Project’s goal is to strategically engage ESOL teachers and students in staff development and ESOL lessons that more accurately reflect the reality of gender and family diversity. Program participants will develop sample diverse family visual materials, grammar lessons focusing on singular “they”, and multimedia texts that will empower and inspire their staff to have more inclusive teaching practices and prompt learners of English to engage with current language and topics related to queer identity and diverse families.

Partner Program: Friends of the Cambridge Community Learning Center
Community: Metro North
Students Served: 800
Award amount: $5,000

Family Literacy Class Volunteer Engagement to Support Access and English Learning for Afghan Women

This Family Literacy course combines beginner-level ESOL with basic literacy skill development to address the English language and literacy learning needs of adult Afghan women who have not yet developed literacy in their primary languages. Classes are taught by an experienced instructor in teaching ESOL supported by an Education Program Assistant and volunteers who speak Dari and Pashto to help clients develop the English proficiency needed to meet basic needs as they rebuild their lives in the U.S. Female evacuees who could not access literacy education in their home country of Afghanistan will engage in a more immersive learning experience, build community with peers, and find their voices as they rebuild their lives in the U.S.

Partner Program: International Institute of New England-Lowell
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 99
Award amount: $2,332

Really Great Reading Project

Really Great Reading is a training tool that helps educators increase student outcomes by identifying areas of weakness. This identification allows educators to develop lessons that accurately address student needs.

Partner Program: The Literacy Project
Community: Western Massachusetts
Students Served: 250
Award amount: $13,741

Program Consultant to Improve Existing High School Equivalency Test (HiSET) in Spanish and ESOL Program

Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA) will contract Barbara Krol-Sinclair, a leader in the education field who speaks fluent Spanish, to provide ongoing consulting to MUA’s HiSET department as well as support the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) department. The goal of this project is to maximize the teachers’ performance to increase HiSET attainment and Educational Functioning Level (EFL) and enter next steps to become work ready.

Partner Program: Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA)
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 200
Award amount: $7,500 (2nd year of funding)

Digital and Technical Literacy Workshop for Immigrant English Language Learners

IINE-Boston’s Digital and Technical Literacy Workshop provides comprehensive, foundational, digital, and technological literacy skill development for refugee and immigrant English learners. Through project-based work and scaffolded support, this program meets students where they are to practice and develop proficiency using Zoom, email, and web-based employment and learning resources. Students will learn how to successfully apply these skills to engage in online learning, access employment and educational resources, and navigate their daily lives.

Partner Program: International Institute of New England-Boston (IINE-Boston)
Community: Metro Boston
Students Served: 165
Award amount: $2,500 (2nd year of funding)

Re-entry Youth Program

This project is a comprehensive re-entry program for recently incarcerated and court-involved/at risk youth (ages 16 – 30) who need a HiSET/GED certification or to improve language proficiency. These individuals are in desperate need of educational opportunities and resources to help them adjust to life outside of prison, prepare for next steps, and reduce the chance of becoming part of the alarming 40% recidivism rate in Massachusetts. Funds will allow continued employment of a youth case manager to coordinate and individualize resources for students so that they may succeed in their educational and employment goals.

Partner Program: Charlestown Adult Education
Community: Greater Boston Area (Charlestown, Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Revere, and Chelsea)
Students Served: 165
Award amount: $7,500 (2nd year of funding)

Sharing Our Stories: An Interactive, Digital Exploration of Our Lives

The main goal of this project is to increase the literacy and digital literacy skills of adult learners. Workshops will introduce students to the memoir style, improve their writing and editing skills, and help them write the stories about their lives. Students will read and listen to memoirs, learning what a memoir is, what memory is and how it functions, and understand how exploring their stories and sharing them helps to connect them to others. Professional authors will make guest appearances at the workshops to present memoir from their perspective.

Partner Program: The Literacy Project
Community: Franklin and Hampshire counties of western Massachusetts
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $2,500 (2nd year of funding)

2021-2022 First Literacy Grant Funded Projects
Book Clubs for Adult Ed Learners: Using e-Readers and e-Books to Increase Access

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light upon an issue for our students that is neither new, nor unique; our learners have very limited access to physical books and other reading materials in their homes. With the shutting of schools and libraries for over a year, which many depend on for access to reading materials, our students have had restricted access to books, dwelling in what has been coined as “book deserts.” To counter this type of barrier, we want to supply our students with e-reader devices and equip them with knowledge on how to use them. We will do this by running two extra-curricular book clubs during the school year where each student will be given a Kindle Paperwhite, and provided with support in using it through participation in a 10-week book club.

Partner Program: Boston Public Schools, Department of Adult Education, Adult Learning Center
Community: Boston
Students Served: 20
Award amount: $7,500

Re-entry Youth Program

We propose to create a comprehensive re-entry program for recently incarcerated and court-involved/at risk youth (ages 16 – 30) who need a HiSET/GED certification or to improve language proficiency. These individuals are in desperate need of educational opportunities and resources to help them adjust to life outside of prison, prepare for next steps, and reduce the chance of becoming part of the alarming 40% recidivism rate in Massachusetts. The goal of this project is to hire a youth case manager to coordinate and individualize resources for students so that they may succeed in their educational and employment goals.

Partner Program: Charlestown Adult Education
Community: Greater Boston Area (Charlestown, Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Revere, and Chelsea).
Students Served: 100
Award amount: $15,000

Technical Literacy for Immigrant English Language Learners

IINE’s Technical Literacy for Immigrant English Language Learners program will address knowledge and experience gaps to help adult immigrants and refugees become proficient in using computers, accessing the internet, send/receiving email, logging into and participating in remote video classes and webinars, and completing online applications. Through training sessions that focus on technical vocabulary and hands-on practice, immigrants and refugees will gain the knowledge and skills to access benefits and employment opportunities and engage fully in online learning and facilitating independence and success in an increasingly digital world.

Partner Program: International Institute of New England-Boston
Community: Boston and communities across Greater Boston
Students Served: 20-30
Award amount: $5,000

Sharing Our Stories: An Interactive, Digital Exploration of Our Lives

The main goal of our Sharing Our Stories project is to increase the literacy and digital literacy skills of our adult learners. Our workshops will introduce students to the memoir style, improve their writing and editing skills, and help them write the stories of their lives. Students will read and listen to memoirs, learning what a memoir is, what memory is and how it functions, and understand how exploring their stories and sharing them helps to connect them to others. Professional authors will make guest appearances at the workshops to present memoir from their perspective. The last two weeks of the project will be spent rehearsing the readings and preparing discussion questions for the digital event.

Partner Program: The Literacy Project
Community: Franklin and Hampshire counties of western Massachusetts
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $7,500

Program Consultant to Improve Existing High School Equivalency Test (HiSET) in Spanish Program, Resulting in Better Alignment with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Indicators of Program Quality and More HiSET Attainments

Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA) will contract Barbara Krol-Sinclair, a leader in the education field who speaks fluent Spanish, to provide ongoing consulting to MUA’s HiSET department. Topics will include updating the curriculum to fully integrate the College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Education (CCRSAE); fuller integration of the Indicators of Program Quality as mandated by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE); update of teacher evaluation documents and conversations to drive a plan for improved instruction; integrating digital literacy, including the use of break-out rooms and more tools such as annotating to engage students on Zoom; leadership training for teachers to identify areas of program improvement and to propose solutions; and tying it all together.

Partner Program: Mujeres Unidas Avanzando
Community: Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, Roslindale Lynn, Chelsea, Quincy, Malden, Somerville, and Cambridge
Students Served: 75
Award amount: $15,000

2020-2021 First Literacy Grant Funded Projects
Adding Kahoot! to GACC Online and Zoom Classroom Instructional

Three members of the GACC teaching staff will integrate the Kahoot educational app into Literacy, Beginner and Low Intermediate levels of ESOL instruction. The project will include time before fall classes begin for teachers to explore Kahoot capacities and to create sets of level-appropriate Kahoot activities. The project is also intended to provide student learning opportunites beyond class meetings. Teachers will meet regularly to discuss and develop best strategies for integration of Kahoot into their curricula.

Partner Program: Gilbert Albert Community Center (GACC)
Community: Dorchester
Students Served: 45
Award amount: $2.966

ACCESS ESOL

IINE’s ACCESS ESOL program seeks to resolve transportation and accessibility barriers for 30 low-income and transitionally housed refugees and immigrants in the Boston area. Through transportation support
and the establishment or distance learning infrastructure and curricula, IINE will expand the impact of current ESOL programming to benefit Boston’s underserved refugees and immigrants.

Partner Program: International Institute of New England (IINE) – Boston
Community: Boston
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $3,382

Evening and Remote ESOL for Low-Income Immigrants

IINE’s expanded Evening and Remote ESOL programming will strengthen the impact of existing Lowell-based ESOL programming by extending IINE’s Lowell, MA ESOL class accessibility to students with daytime work or childcare constraints, or mobility or transportation challenges. The program seeks to reach these refugees and immigrants with the language skills and cultural knowledge to navigate their communities, seek and secure jobs, apply for higher education opportunities, or pass their citizenship test.

Partner Program: International Institute of New England (IINE) – Lowell
Community: Lowell
Students Served: 25
Award amount: $4,670

Student Leadership Council

MCAE will create a Student Leadership Council (SLC) to engage Adult Basic Education (ABE) students from multiple programs in advocating on state and local policy systems that influence their lives. MCAE will provide advocacy training and guide students through an advocacy activity that can engage other students around an issue of their choosing. Students will deliver a workshop about their project at MCAE’s annual NETWORK conference.

Partner Program: Massachusetts Coalition for Adult Education (MCAE)
Community: Boston
Students Served: 20
Award amount: $4,000

Identifying Misinformation in the News

Weaving together English language and digital literacy skills, MUA students will learn the importance of verifying information, checking facts, and evaluating sources. The ESOL III class will sharpen their language and technology skills by producing and distributing a “newsletter” to the MUA community, in which all articles are researched, written, and formatted by the students.

Partner Program: Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA)
Community: Dorchester
Students Served: 12-15
Award amount: $4,620

TEAMS: Teacher Exellence and Mentoring Support

A collaboration between two adult education programs, TEAMS will use an action research framework, asset-mapping and peer coaching to support lasting teacher development. It will create a network of nine action plans, each leading to a specific improvement in teaching practice, and collective sharing of resources and learning.

Partner Program: The Care Center
Community: Holyoke
Students Served: 120
Award amount: $5,000

The Connection Project: Multi-Media Blogging for English Language Learners

The YMCA ILC will establish a class to help students explore personal expression through digital media including personal essays, photography, podcasting, and video editing. The ultimate result, titled “The Connection Project,” will be a website where students can browse other students’ work and share it across different platforms.

Partner Program: YMCA of Greater Boston – International Learning Center
Community: Boston
Students Served: 15
Award amount: $4,235

2019-2020 First Literacy Grant Funded Projects
Diving in Deep with Children’s Books Which Resonate

The Blackstone Community center will use their First Literacy Lab grant funding to develop lessons and teach ESOL family literacy classes centered around high-interest children’s books that resonate deeply with parents.

Partner Program: Blackstone Community Center (BCYF)
Community: Boston
Students Served: 25
Award amount: $3,500

ESOL Family Literacy — Library Partnership

(Continuation of a successful year 1 grant)
The Brookline ESOL program will develop an ESOL family literacy curriculum utilizing children’s literacy, art, and storytelling, and promoting understanding and utilization of the local library.

Partner Program: Brookline ESOL Program
Community: Brookline
Students Served: 10
Award amount: $4,000

Emerging Literacy and iPads

This project will develop curriculum using iPads for pre-literate ESOL students.

Partner Program: Center for New Americans
Community: Northampton/Amherst
Students Served: 120
Award amount: $5,000

HIP to SMS: Helping Immigrant Parents to be Social Media Savvy

FAESLP will use this grant to develop and implement a program-wide initiative to help immigrant parents learn how to guide themselves and their children through the challenges of today’s social media environment.

Partner Program: Framingham Adult ESL Plus (FAESLP)
Community: Framingham
Students Served: 800
Award amount: $3,500

Money Talks and Your Voice Matters: Financial Skills for Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylees

IINE will use this funding to develop curriculum for a pilot financial skills course designed to provide refugees and immigrants with practical financial education and tools.

Partner Program: International Institute of New England (IINE)
Community: Boston
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $5,000

Think! Executive Function Skills Workshops

This project involves developing and teaching a 12-week workshop aimed at improving the executive function and learning skills of High School Equivalency students.

Partner Program: Joan Brack Adult Learning Center
Community: Framingham
Students Served: 12
Award amount: $5,000

College for You and Me/ College Para Ti y Para Mi

MUA will develop and pilot a new class geared to help ESOL students evaluate their options for higher education, and to prepare students to succeed in the college application process.

Partner Program: Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA)
Community: Boston
Students Served: 20
Award amount: $5,000

Pre-Family Literacy: ESOL for Parents and Caregivers with Low Levels of English Proficiency

This grant will fund the adaptation of a family literacy curriculum for lower level ESOL students, and a summer class which will provide a pathway to traditional family literacy classes in the fall.

Partner Program: Quincy Asian Resources
Community: Quincy
Students Served: 18
Award amount: $5,000

Getting Connected to Massachusetts through Historic Tourism

This grant will fund a pilot for a summer ESOL class focused on Massachusetts’ history, incorporating classroom lessons and field trips.

Partner Program: YMCA International Learning Center
Community: Boston
Students Served: 20
Award amount: $5,000

2018-2019 First Literacy Grant Funded Projects
Parent Talk: An ESOL Unit for Parents of Very Young Children

This project will focus on developing and teaching an ESOL curriculum for parents of young children to improve students’ ability to communicate with health care providers, day-care teachers, and shelter staff about their children.

Partner Program: ATASK
Community: Boston
Students Served: 10
Award amount: $5,000

Take Advantage of Boston’s Cultural Resources

The Blackstone Community center will use their First Literacy Lab grant funding to create ESOL curriculum centered around student and family field trips to Boston cultural sites.

Partner Program: Blackstone Community Center (BCYF)
Community: Boston
Students Served: 20
Award amount: $2,900

Family Literacy and Storytelling

The Brookline ESOL program will develop a curriculum to teach English language skills using children’s literature and involve students in a digital storytelling project.

Partner Program: Brookline ESOL Program
Community: Brookline
Students Served: 20
Award amount: $5,000

Poetry Is Power

This project will incorporate poetry into the ESOL classroom. Students will create a school literary journal and have the opportunity to present their poems publicly.

Partner Program: Center for New Americans
Community: Northampton/Amherst
Students Served: 50
Award amount: $5,000

Live Performances Initiative

This project will give beginner ESOL students the opportunity to attend live classical and dance performances. These field trips will be used to reinforce and expand on the English curriculum.

Partner Program: International Learning Center – YMCA
Community: Boston
Students Served: 25
Award amount: $3,000

DRIVE — Learner’s Permit Preparation for Refugees and Immigrants

(Continuation of a successful year 1 grant)
This two-part course helps refugee and immigrant students prepare for their Massachusetts driver’s permit exam.

Partner Program: International Institute of New England (IINE)
Community: Boston
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $5,000

Volunteer in English — ESOL Through Service-Learning Projects

MUA will introduce a service-learning component to their ESOL class. This will encourage students to play an active role in their communities and learn more about Boston resources.

Partner Program: Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA)
Community: Boston
Students Served: 15
Award amount: $4,500

We Are All Immigrants — a play

NOAH will organize and direct a group of ESOL students to perform a play about the immigrant experience. Performances will be held for the community and recorded for use by other programs.

Partner Program: Neighborhood of Affordable Housing (NOAH)
Community: East Boston
Students Served: 15
Award amount: $3,500

Civic Leadership Academy

This workshop series will provide student leadership training and involve students in advocacy activities.

Partner Program: North Shore Community Action Programs, Inc. (NSCAP)
Community: Peabody
Students Served: 12
Award amount: $5,000

Science Encounters

This science curriculum for High School Equivalency students will include hands-on projects and labs.

Partner Program: South Middlesex Opportunity Council, Joan Brack Adult Learning Center
Community: Framingham
Students Served: 12
Award amount: $5,000

What Page Are You On?

This grant will help the Springfield Adult Learning Center implement a program-wide “one-book” community. All ABE students and teachers will participate in reading books that share a common theme. Independent reading will be supported by student journaling, classroom activities, and discussion.

Partner Program: Springfield Adult Learning Center
Community: Springfield
Students Served: 185
Award amount: $5,000

2017-2018 First Literacy Grant Funded Projects
Reading for Our Journeys

This project will expand availability of high beginning/low intermediate reading materials that support the Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence (ATASK)’s educational and psychosocial objectives.

Partner Program: ATASK
Community: Boston
Students Served: 8
Award amount: $5,000

Book Club

In this program teachers will establish a weekly class-like book club for students in all levels of ESOL instruction.

Partner Program: Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Network (BCNC)
Community: Boston- Chinatown
Students Served: 75
Award amount: $5,000

GACC Magazine of Student Writing

In this project instructors will develop a year-long program of integrating student writing into all levels of their curriculum.

Partner Program: Gilbert Albert Community Center (GACC)
Community: Dorchester
Students Served: 45
Award amount: $5,000

Creating a Comprehensive Technology Curriculum for ESOL and ABE Students

This project will support the program’s newly-identified computer literacy teacher in developing curriculum materials for computer instruction across the program’s levels.

Partner Program: Haitian Multiservice Center (HMSC)
Community: Dorchester
Students Served: 150
Award amount: $5,000

Learner’s Permit Preparation for Refugees and Immigrants

In this project IINE will provide a Learner’s Permit Preparation training course for English for Employment (EFE) students.

Partner Program: International Institute of New England (IINE)
Community: Lowell
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $5,000

From Exposure to Mastery: Helping Adult ELLs Develop Content Knowledge in Math

With this project educators will develop and apply ways to integrate math into the ESOL curriculum through contextualized instruction.

Partner Program: Jamaica Plain Community Center Adult Learning Program (JPCCALP)
Community: Jamaica Plain
Students Served: 130
Award amount: $5,000

ESOL for the Home Health Aid Career

Instructors will create an ESOL class with curriculum designed to strengthen the clinical component of Home Health Aid training.

Partner Program: Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA)
Community: Dorchester
Students Served: 20
Award amount: $5,000

Walking, Weather, and Writing

This grant will fund a multidisciplinary team-based curriculum, blending content areas of health/fitness, science, discovery of local natural resources, journaling, and oral presentation.

Partner Program: Quincy Asian Resources
Community: Quincy
Students Served: 12
Award amount: $5,000

SCALE Connections

This project, which is the continuation of a successful Year 1 grant, will help English language learners practice conversation skills and build connections in the English-speaking community.

Partner Program: Somerville Center for Adult Learning Experiences (SCALE)
Community: Somerville
Students Served: 40
Award amount: $5,000

ESOL Computer Basics

In this project instructors will design and implement a basic computer class for ESOL students to prepare them to use USA Learns as a wait list lead into ESOl classes.

Partner Program: South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC)
Community: Framingham
Students Served: 45
Award amount: $5,000

Building Language Through Art

This project will target level one students in a 7-week program focusing on poetry and visual arts to encourage accelerated English language acquisition.

Partner Program: St. Mark Community Education Program
Community: Dorchester
Students Served: 25
Award amount: $3,385

Computer Literacy and Leadership Development

Building on a 2016 – 2017 Literacy Lab grant, this project will offer computer literacy classes using more experienced students as assistants to build leadership skills.

Partner Program: Welcome Project
Community: Somerville
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $5,000

2016-2017 First Literacy Grant Funded Projects
Summer ESOL Gardening Class

Students will receive both ESOL instruction and hands-on experience on the environment, gardening, plants and vegetables, comparing practices in their countries and the US, a garden educator from City Natives involved in the project.

Partner Program: ABCD
Community: Mattapan
Students Served: 15
Award amount: $4,726

Reading and Writing Skills in Leveled ESOL Classes

This project will pilot multi-level instruction, making for instruction targeted at students’ varied English levels in reading, writing, listening and speaking.

Partner Program: ATASK
Community: Boston
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $5,000

Increasing Impact of Volunteers

In this Program Strengthening pilot, students will benefit from more extensive and effective volunteer-led ESOL instruction.

Partner Program: ATASK
Community: Boston
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $5,000

Writing Techniques for Personal Goals and Improvement

Students will be given additional instruction and resources to develop their writing skills, for their high-school equivalency and their academics and professional next steps.

Partner Program: Boston Center—Youth & Families (BCYF) Perkins Adult Learning Program
Community: Dorchester
Students Served: 25
Award amount: $4,490

WeChat Video Lessons: A Fun Way for Chinese Speakers to Overcome Pronunciation Issues

Video lessons using WeChat will be developed and implemented. These lessons will allow students to improve their English pronunciation in a format already familiar to them.

Partner Program: Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Network (BCNC)
Community: Boston-Chinatown
Students Served: 35
Award amount: $5,000

Digital Memoir Project for Immigrant Seniors

Immigrant seniors will be preserving their life stories through images and text, an e-book created to record their experiences, so they will continue to live, to be shared through time.

Partner Program: Brookline Learning Project
Community: Brookline
Students Served: 16
Award amount: $3,850

Administrative Assistant Preparation Class

This pilot class will train adult learners for jobs as a administrative assistants. Filing, record keeping, phone etiquette, and computer skills will be taught, with job referrals also part of the model.

Partner Program: Charlestown Adult Education /BHA Charlestown
Community: Charlestown
Students Served: 15
Award amount: $5,000

Professional and Academic Discourse

Basic remedial writing will be addressed in this project, with lessons on grammar, formal vs. informal English, and sentence structure, all to prepare students for their next academic or professional step.

Partner Program: Charlestown Adult Education /BHA Charlestown
Community: Charlestown
Students Served: 15
Award amount: $5,000

Computer Tool Tech “Free Way”

Program students will receive instruction and do hands-on work with computers, forming and Information Technology (IT) Lab. Students will learn and get experience upgrading, maintaining, securing, and customizing computers.

Partner Program: Mujeres Unidas Avanzando (MUA)
Community: Dorchester
Students Served: 12
Award amount: $5,000

Digital Space-Repetition Curriculum for Low-Level English Learners

A digital, spaced-repetition system will be developed for low-level English learners using ANKI, an open-source program for combining text, image, and audio digital flashcards.

Partner Program: Project Literacy
Community: Watertown
Students Served: 15
Award amount: $4,989

Extending Extended Reading for Community ESOL

This grant will fully integrate the program’s extensive reading project begun last year, enabling teachers to collaborate and plan how to make extensive reading a key component of their ESOL classes.

Partner Program: Quincy Asian Resources
Community: Quincy
Students Served: 81
Award amount: $3,526

SCALE Connections

Volunteers from the local community will be recruited, trained and will provide small-group tutoring for program students, the model based on Intercambio in Boulder, Colorado. Events will be held for students and community members, including potlucks, dances, and field trips.

Partner Program: SCALE
Community: Somerville
Students Served: 40
Award amount: $5,000

ESOL Curriculum Strengthening Project

This program will strengthen its ESOL program with the purchase and pilot usage of a textbook series and development and trial of curriculum developed to complement it.

Partner Program: Vietnamese American Civic Association
Community: Dorchester
Students Served: 60
Award amount: $4,490

Computer Literacy for Immigrants

Computer Literacy classes will be piloted in this project, instruction including MS Word, keyboarding, online basics, and emailing. Students will be giving PowerPoint presentation by the end of the class.

Partner Program: Welcome Project
Community: Somerville
Students Served: 30
Award amount: $5,000

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