The CSL Literacy Initiative is a partnership with Osceola and KIPP School Districts within Arkansas’s Mississippi County. It is designed to improve literacy education in grades PK-12 through enhanced student interventions and extended learning and further educator professional development. The Initiative will facilitate improvement in library media center print and technology-based collections as well as launching a book distribution effort to get books into the homes of highest-need PK-8 students and families who lack the resources to acquire vital print materials proven to increase literacy skills and reading levels.

The initiative supports these districts’ alignment with the Arkansas Right to Read and LEARNS Acts by deploying professional development literacy coaches and facilitators specifically focused on equipping teachers with the knowledge and skills needed to leverage the science of reading in the classroom. In the first of its five years, the project strengthened literacy education for more than 2,600 students.

Funding for the CSL Literacy Project consists of Federal dollars under the US Department of Education’s Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) grant program.