All Children Reading Round 2 Grant Competition and the second is the All Children Reading Round 2 Prize Competition

USAID, World Vision and the Australian Government recently launched exciting early grade reading funding opportunities that I’d like to share with you. The first is the All Children Reading Round 2 Grant Competition and the second is the All Children Reading Round 2 Prize Competition (www.allchildrenreading.org). Both of these opportunities support USAID’s global education goal of improving reading skills for 100 million children in primary grades by 2015 and similar goals in both World Vision and the Government of Australia’s Education Strategies. We hope to improve the reading skills of millions of children, and these two initiatives will help us reach that goal in partnership with people like you.

As you know, children who do not attain reading skills at the primary level are on a lifetime trajectory of limited educational progress and therefore limited economic and developmental opportunity.  A myriad of factors contribute to low reading levels, including teacher absenteeism, frequent closure of schools,  limited instructional time, lack of relevant and accessible reading material, poor teaching practices, and limited use of reading assessment instruments.  Our strategy is to seek impact and scale through sustainable innovation to tackle some of these challenges.  Through the All Children Reading initiative, we hope to discover, develop, and scale innovative reading solutions that will help get all children reading and, more importantly, understanding what they read.

All Children Reading Grand Challenge for Development On February 27, 2014, we announced round two of the All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development, along with partners USAID, World Vision, Inc., World Vision Australia, and the Australian government.  This global grant and prize competition seeks innovative ideas that leverage the transformative power of technology to leapfrog existing challenges that prevent children from learning to read.  The grant competition will award funding to technology-based innovations from the global science, technology, education, and broader development communities that improve reading for children in early primary school. Round 2 focus areas are: Mother Tongue Instruction and Reading Materials, Family and Community Engagement, and Children with Disabilities. The deadline for submission of the concept note is April 17, 2014 (14:00 EST).

Also a part of round two of the All Children Reading Grand Challenge for Development is

the “Enabling Writers” Prize to amplify the overall initiative. $100,000 will be awarded to the organization or individual that develops a software solution to help writers create reading materials in local languages for children in developing countries. Applicants are invited to submit their software applications until July 18, 2014. Click here to view ACR GCD Round 2 - English

We hope that you will find these opportunities to impact reading levels around the world as exciting as we do and that you will see within them ways for us to partner together on innovative, sustainable solutions.