For Immediate Release
Contact: Chad Colby: chad.colby@greatminds.org
Monday, Aug. 5, 2019—Teachers now have the option of using DonorsChoose.org to help fund the purchase of texts for Wit & Wisdom®, the English language arts curriculum from Great Minds® for Kindergarten through Grade 8 students. Teachers simply select Wit & Wisdom texts from the AKJ Education catalog on DonorsChoose.org when creating their project requests.
DonorsChoose.org gives public school teachers a vehicle for requesting materials and experiences for their students. Donors have funded more than 1.4 million projects since 2000, the vast majority at schools in communities with limited resources. Teachers request books more than any other resource.
Research shows knowledge-building curricula such as Wit & Wisdom are essential to teaching literacy and that text complexity drives student equity. As a rigorous curriculum, Wit & Wisdom uses both core texts and volume of reading texts, or books students read independently from the classroom instruction. These are high quality books that schools must purchase along with the curriculum. Teachers want to provide the maximum number of texts to their students, but some find budgetary constraints hold them back, especially if their classes are large. One grade alone at a large school might require more than 100 books.
“Teachers and students should have everything they need to inspire and fulfill joy in reading,” said Lynne Munson, founder and CEO of Great Minds. “Students love that Wit & Wisdom texts captivate them with vivid content on fascinating topics, from the human circulatory system to the Dust Bowl to outer space. Through these texts, students gain knowledge as they build critical literacy skills. DonorsChoose.org allows donors to find and fund the worthiest projects, such as putting rich texts that spark curiosity and build knowledge in the hands of children who crave them.”
AKJ Education of Baltimore, Maryland, inventories, packages, and ships Great Minds texts and is also an integrated vendor with DonorsChoose.org. Accordingly, the company will fulfill any Wit & Wisdom text orders funded through DonorsChoose.org.
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About Great Minds: Great Minds provides the highest quality curricula to schools and districts nationwide, inspiring joy in teaching and learning. Eureka Math® and Wit & Wisdom both earned top scores from independent nonprofit reviewer EdReports.org. Great Minds is the only curriculum creator to have earned three Tier 1 ratings, the highest possible, from the Louisiana Department of Education, highly respected for its curricular leadership. Curricula earning the Tier 1 ratings were Wit & Wisdom, Eureka Math, and PhD Science™. A 2016 RAND Corporation report found Eureka Math and its original version, EngageNY Math, to be the most widely used elementary school math curricula in the nation. Geodes®, a library of beautifully illustrated, content-rich books with phonics practice for emerging readers, is the latest Great Minds offering to delight teachers and students. Learn more at greatminds.org.
